


Of Cooks & Seekers

by Monochromescarf



Series: Of Cooks & Seekers [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-14 13:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5746147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monochromescarf/pseuds/Monochromescarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my own insufferable fluff piece on the events of Dragon Age Inquisition and the relationship between my Inquisitor and Cassandra. Some backgrounds and events have been changed. More to come.</p><p>"Because if Andraste and the Maker did not love you, how could you have done all you have done? Do you think that Cullen, Josie and Leliana follow you because of how kind you are? Do you think the army does? No, it is because when you speak it is as though you see the future and desperately miss a time that has not yet come to pass. A brighter future to come. They hear that and believe in it, and so do I."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fastidious Musings on the Battlements

Cassandra Pentaghast paced around Skyhold's ancient battlements for what may have been the hundredth time that afternoon. Fastidiously she wrung her hands then readjusted the lining of her lambskin gloves around the edge of her nails before tugging on the steel platelets studding the skirt of her gauntlets like a reptile's hide. She had been very ill at ease for the last month. Her mind analyzed then reinterpreted every word every glance and every gesture the Inquisitor had shared with her since she had him placed in manacles before they met that dreadful day in Haven.

The things she had said and done to him were the beginnings of permanent enmity between people and yet when informed that he was the sole being that could close The Breach and save the lives of countless people he had sprung to help without reluctance. It had been a pleasant surprise that the the Inquisitor was of such a mind for the care of others, something which he had clearly demonstrated before and after being set free in Haven.

Despite also being rude at times in the guise of glib honesty, something of which she speculated he probably delighted in. He made a sport of making others uncomfortable.

After being named the Herald of Andraste he had always asked for Cullen, Josephine and Leliana's counsel on every issue before making a decision and always thanked them with humility afterwards. He led reluctantly, always rejecting any notion of being a divinely ordained savior. "I am just the son of an Antivan cook" he would often say when prodded for some form of holy wisdom. But despite that and his extreme inexperience in matters of leadership he had proven an novice but extremely ferocious fighter, determined to protect his own. It had taken time but he was gradually growing into his boots as a leader.

Cassandra often wondered how well the Maker had chosen; the Herald, for all his virtues, was vain about his personage, spiteful when insulted and vindictive when provoked.

Because of this she had developed a degree of fear and dread for the man and she always questioned what was it exactly that motivated him at times. When choosing to involve himself with the mages and the disaster involving Magister Alexius, instead of conscripting them as she urged him (and she expected he would as they often saw eye to eye) he asked them to come as willing and free allies.

She had been furious until they reached Haven. She ignored him and glared daggers at him whenever he attempted to make conversation with her, something which he did not seem to take notice of.

For Cassandra it was a bitter disappointment that a mage from the Circle of Ostwick, a circle so famed for its tame outlook and noticeable lack of incidences of apostasy or maleficarum, would do something so irresponsible.

It had been one day away from Haven that they had been met on the road by a contingent of inquisitorial soldiers ordered by Cullen to escort the first wave of mages to their headquarters safely. And on that same day she and he had had their first real "fight".

He had flowed then, through the ranks introducing the common soldiery to the mages, some of which he had known personally from his own circle, with the same gregarious disposition he was becoming known for at home and abroad.

And she exploded.

"You cannot be serious."

"What's that Cassandra?"

"This! This whole mess _you_ created. Thinking that we do not need the Circle of Magi or the Templars to watch them! That the mages could or would govern themselves responsibly!"

He had turned away from the soldiery and the magi. Not a one uttered a word but both groups watched keenly. At that moment Cassandra regretted losing her temper and chiding him in public, she was part of the leadership in the Inquisition and having a spat with the Herald of Andraste would not look good. She had enough of a mind for politics and the nature of gossip to know that.

"You do not know that Cassandra. The world is changing and I believe we mages must have a hand in it rather than sit idly by while others decide our fates."

"Careful Herald, I hear echoes of the Tevinter Imperium in your voice."

He coiled his fingers around the tips of his scarf in the way he so often did when thoughtful or nervous. An ounce of pity crept into her heart and it was quickly stifled. The Herald had power and he needed to be taught responsibility.

"You are wrong. I do not believe we would do the same."

"And how could you know that? You gave rebel mages, a group that has made every wrong choice, the freedom to decide their own fates. How many of them turned on the common people? For joy of murder, for profit? And yet when having the choice in your hands to bring them to heel you choose to put your faith in their better natures when they have proven they cannot handle being free."

She felt her blood run cold when the Herald looked back into her eyes. Her skin prickled and she could taste the coppery tang of ozone in her mouth as the magic in his blood swelled. Cassandra wondered for a moment if he would strike her, she had seen first hand many times how despite not being a potent mage by any means he was crafty with his magic and not adverse to using Fade Walk to find a spot in the back of a swordsman's neck to plant the spear-like staff he wielded.

"You do not know that Cassandra Pentaghast! You are wrong!" he screamed at her. He stamped his foot down before plucking his feathered hat from Antiva and whipping it at his feet in their way of expressing outrage. She could see the frustration twisting his face and his left hand's fingers twitched like his mark was sparking.

"Mages should grow!" he continued. "I cannot help how I am Cassandra! I want to help others, it is all I've ever wanted and it is what I have applied my gift into ever since I learned how to use it! I want my fellows to learn of that joy too. Think of the world we could build together, non-mage and mage alike if we cooperated with one another. _That_ is the mistake in Circles and Templars, believing that we are different from normal people. We are  _you_. We want the same things. A world for all people to live in peace! I believe in that! And I want mages to believe in my vision too! I do not have all the answers nor would I ever claim to but I will guide the world to peace for as long as I can responsibly, not to control it as a god among mortals. That is a mage's responsibility and everyone will see that I swear it!"

The Seeker breathed deep, still watching the Herald's movements for a twist of the wrist or a hand sign or a flicker of magic. She couldn't help but feel moved by the passion in his voice, he believed what he was saying. He meant it.

"You sound like an idealist. Tell me; is casting a fireball part of how you intended to learn how to apply your gift to help others? Are all those lives you've ended so far to protect what you believe is worth defending not worthy of your idealism?"

The Herald's mouth hung open for an instant like she had punched him, dumbfounded by what he had just heard, before snapping shut and twisting into a grimace.

"No. But the healing magic I used to mend your broken arm was. And those spells I learned to keep templars as well as the apostate mages from murdering innocent people in the Hinterlands are no more evil than the sword you wield in your hand. And I am not sorry for either."

Cassandra paused and thought for a moment. He was right.

"And how will you go about teaching the world how to believe as you do then?"

The Herald bent down and picked up his hat before carefully adjusting it back onto his head. He gazed into her, unflinching, his dark eyes lancing into her own. Eyes so often used to smiling in jest or wit.

What she saw there she could not shake or forget.

"I will open their eyes."

That had been scarcely a year ago she mused. Despite the dread she felt in her heart she could not hide from herself or others that she had come to care about him. He was ultimately a good man and a believer in bettering the world and striving for a brighter future. Whatever that meant to himself or to those who heard it. He had claimed as much when she had led him up the steps of the keep at Skyhold. She asked him to promise her she would not regret making him the Inquisitor.

She and Leliana witnessed it as he grasped the sword and called out to the people present. Soldier, pilgrim and mage alike.

"For the sake of all we hold dear and all those we love and a future brighter than anything we could ever imagine! We are the Inquisition reborn!"

He had been met with an explosion of cheers and applause.

And despite her apprehensions regarding his decision with the mages the spirit of his belief if not his outlook on life had taken root in the magi present. She had never seen mages so relaxed or happy, or enthusiastically helpful. And for their part the non lyrium-blooded among them had also moved away from their fear of magic.

Her only wonder was if it would last.

Cassandra took a deep breath as the wind picked up from the valley and flowed around her.

Not having him around was uncomfortable. She knitted her eyebrows in exasperation as she shredded her memory of their last talk before he left without her to go afield for the first time since the Inquisition was born for some detail she may have missed. A sound of disgust escaped her pursed lips as she recalled the last time they spoke. Why did she say anything? Why had she asked to speak to him in private about things she was partially certain she had just imagined?

Her heart had begun to pound in her chest that day as fear and delight tumbled in her ribcage, each unwilling to give ground.

"Inquisitor, may we speak in private?"

"Aren't we? Also how many times have I asked you to stop calling me that in public and in private. I don't like it."

"Of course, my lord."

He gave her a look, his eyes narrowed at her apprehension and her etiquette.

"Sergio."

"Thank you. What is troubling you, my dear?"

Cassandra moved away from him turning towards a side of the ramparts that led nowhere. She couldn't look him in the eye, or walk away. So many words caught themselves, hooks-in-tongue, completely unwilling to divulge her hidden dread or desires.

"I" she began before a languid pause as she forced herself to articulate "-have noticed that you've."

Her eyes staggeringly wandered back to him as he leaned on the parapets patiently waiting for her to speak as he so often had when she had given into confiding in him of all people in Skyhold. Of her fears for the fate of the Seekers now resting squarely in her hands. Of her love of her smutty drama books written by a certain dwarf, her fear of doing the wrong thing and of soft things.

And throughout it all, despite their antagonisms and his teasing and how she had treated him in the beginning he was always there, smiling and with an open heart wanting to help his friend.

"I've noticed, the flirting. Are you doing this deliberately? Or is it my imagination, which it could very well be! I do not often take people's meaning and you and I have had our fair share of misunderstandings."

Cassandra winced at the memory of how his soft smile turned into a devilish grin with no small amount of amusement glimmering in his eyes. How happy he looked.

"No, you are not imagining it."

Cassandra struggled to articulate thoughts and feelings that had gnawed at her waking mind for weeks, after months of thoughts and feelings in her subconscious that had slowly had ground her composure to nothing and broken fully into her awareness shone in her mind like the sun when viewed from beneath unquiet waters. She had tried to deflect any responsibility off of either of them, this was after all just a misunderstanding between two foolish people.

"You cannot be serious."

"And why not?"

"Because you are the Inquisitor, The Herald of Andraste. And you intend to properly court me?"

Sergio's eyes smiled along with his lips. She cursed herself inwardly, she could feel how hot her face and ears felt. How her knees wanted to fail her and how somehow a swarm of butterflies was slowly waking and struggling to take flight in her stomach. And he could see it. Damn it.

"I do indeed, _mi Dama_." he offered using the Antivan honorific for ladies with a conspicuous flourish of his normally more sedate accent.

She smiled in spite herself. _Charmer_. "You are mocking me." she replied, more composed then.

"I am not!"

"I do not see why you would insist on tormenting me so relentlessly if you are not."

The Herald's face slunk into an amicable sneer as though he was attempting to explain something obvious to a child.

"Then you are not paying attention. I like you Cassandra, if this is not what you want then tell me and I will be rid of what I feel and trouble you no longer."

Cassandra's face remained placid but inwardly she had been shocked by how her inner voice jerked inwardly: Please don't!

"This is not what I want." she said as she briskly marched off, trying very hard not to discern whatever expression had replaced his smile out of the corner of her eye. Whipping open the door of the shadowed tower she then closed it much too hard, the slam reverberated throughout the entire hold of the tower and barracks. Workers and soldiers looked up at her, confused about the sudden interruption to the quiet susurrus of their posts. She buried her face in her hands before exclaiming "shit" and ripping the door back open and striding back into the cold afternoon air gripping the parapets. The Inquisitor had turned away and was meandering aimlessly towards the southern battlements where the main gate squatted uncomfortably.

"Sergio, wait!" she called out to him, a little too loud she realized as he spun on his heel to meet her with very real surprise on his face.

She closed the distance and gave a cautious scan around them making sure there were no new listeners. Cassandra lowered her voice to a hushed whisper as she refused to look him in the eye. Her face must have been all aflame she realized because the frigid air practically slapped it as she almost squeaked before speaking.

"It is what I want. But I want the ideal: a man who can sweep me off my feet, read me poetry by candlelight and bring me flowers. You cannot be that man, Sergio. And my desires are selfish. You have more important things to do than waste time courting me."

The man standing before her stepped up suddenly seeming a lot taller than what he actually was and gently took her armored fingers into his hands. She clenched her jaw. She could not meet his gaze, if she did she felt she'd be swallowed up by the swarm crawling in her abdomen. His long digits, bearing the scars of old wounds suffered in hectic kitchens with sharp knives, gently traced circles around the tips of her fingers before cradling them gently as he clamped his hands around them to keep them warm. Nothing separated them at that instant but a thin layer of lambskin and tiny sheets of polished steel. The moment seemed to last for ages before she finally, felt composed enough to look at him. When she did she turned her head in her best attempt to hold a firm gaze but failed immediately.

When had he gotten so close to her? She worried immediately if he was going to lean in to kiss her, unsure how she would react but more frighteningly; how it would make her feel. But he didn't, instead his eyes just wandered her face drinking in every detail, every mole and every hair follicle and the cleanness of the scar on her jaw and cheek as he committed it all to memory in what she swore was admiration.

"Time and effort spent courting you is not a waste, Cassandra. I know what I want. My being the Herald and the Inquisitor and all the perils we will face will not change that."

Almost sluggishly the pried her hands out of his and broke his hypnotic gaze. She did her best not to seem pathetic as she walked away calling out "It changes everything."

That had been thirty days ago and she regretted having asked him if he was flirting with her. She regretted it but it had to be done. He and she were so different and their stations in life would keep them apart. She was Cassandra Pentaghast, a Seeker and Nevarran royalty so far removed from a throne she did not want she fell completely into irrelevance in the constant jockeying for power within her family. She was difficult and stubborn and self righteous. That was what he must have felt drawn to. The idea of his protector. He couldn't see what lie within, the glass heart that sat in an iron cage. What she yearned for: the ideal romance. Love unbound and swept up in passion in the pursuit of a bond that could not be broken.

Flowers and poetry by candlelight.

Maker forgive her selfishness, she wanted it all.

And who was he?

He was Sergio Trevelyan formerly Sergio Del Monte. The bastard son of Nyra Trevelyan and his father, the head chef of one of the many princes of Antiva. She could see where his desire to help others came from. He had been disowned by his mother at birth and given to his father to raise. He had grown up in the kitchen, learning how to cook and therefore caring for others. Giving of himself to sate the hunger and thirst of people who would never even see his face. Only when his gift for magic started to become too much to hide did his father send him to Ostwick to meet his mother and become part of the most peaceful circle in southern Thedas. He was a fine man. He was kind, brave, smart and a fierce friend with his whole life ahead of him when magic robbed him of the only life he had ever known. Then a mark he neither wanted nor understood thrust a dark destiny on his shoulders with a terrible adversary wholly committed to his death.

And the fate of the world rested on his every choice and step. And out of all of this he chose her. A woman who was his senior by a respectable number of years, who had shackled him, challenged him in front of the people he so wanted to save and who could never be with him. The boy cook who wanted to feed his liege and everyone in his city now was the man and the Inquisitor. And his desires had chosen her.

It was mercy to have rejected him. She spared him so much pain and disappointment.

She wrung her hands again as she scanned the road to Skyhold again for signs of his return and wondered: if it was mercy, why did her chest hurt so badly?

Three full days after their talk in private she heard he was getting ready to move out again, to Orlais. The word was he was going to help stabilize the Exalted Plains which were seeing a rash of strange sightings. Cultists in the hills and the dead rising from the battlefields in pockets here and there. She had always been at his side ever since the beginning and out of habit she had begun to gather her equipment and check her armor and weapons. He would seek her out as he always did, he would trot up to her and say "Let's get going, Cassandra. There is lots to do!".

Except he didn't. She waited by the gate after she had gathered her things, and hitched them on her horse's saddlebags. Standing straight at attention she waited for what felt like hours waiting to see any sign of him. It was easier to wait than to go looking for him. She was his protector but she did not relish the thought of seeing him after she had been the one to do him harm.

She must have seemed perturbed if she did not seem strange standing by the portcullis as if waiting for someone for hours, Solas approached her and asked her why she was waiting at the gate.

"I am waiting for the Lord Inquisitor. He is supposed to be heading out to Orlais soon."

Solas smiled, unknowing of her inner turmoil, "I am afraid you will be waiting for some time. He left several hours ago."

Cassandra snapped her head to look Solas straight in the eyes.

"What?"

"Oh yes. He left with Bull, Varric and Dorian hours before you started standing by the gate."

She must have looked bright red with embarrassment because Solas bowed his head and promptly left her standing there alone.

Looking foolish to anyone who passed her by.

She was Cassandra Pentaghast, Seeker and protector of the Inquisitor.

And he was Sergio Trevelyan, and he had left his shadow behind.

Why had he done so? Was he angry with her? Did he hate her now? Had she made it too awkward for him to even look at her? She kept mincing her memories for details. There had to be something there. Something for her to understand where they were now since she could not just ask him.

She took a deep breath as she turned away from the battlements. Leliana's scouts had spotted him and his companions some miles away but the schedule had been kept. He was returning not a day late. Cassandra fondled the letter in her pocket she had written the night before, she would read it aloud to him once he had debriefed his advisers on the situation and had had time to relax. She would go to his room, knock on the door and be let in. He would offer her tea and some cheese, maybe some bread from the tiny pantry he insisted keeping in his room. She would take the tea and say no to the food, he'd ask if she was sure and she'd say yes. They would relax for a bit and then she would ask him not to be upset but to sit and listen to a letter she had written for him. He would smile and lean back into his chair and she would read it aloud.

_"Dear Sergio._

_You are a fine man and a wonderful person. Knowing that you are in charge is comforting for now and for the future. You are a good mage with a good heart. I wish more were like you. But, I wish for you to set aside your affections for me before they get out of hand. I am flattered and surprised that you would even consider such a thing but I cannot return your kindness. I am not good for you. I've caused you pain without need and I have little idea how to comfort you or treat you the way you would expect a ladylove to do so. I believe your attraction for me is only superficial and simply about the novelty of my person which may seem enticing to you. As I stated before: I am difficult, stubborn and self righteous and I would not make a good match for you. I will however endeavor to protect you with my life always as well as cherish the friendship you have so generously offered me. It is my hope once this is over you find a nice Antivan girl who will love you as fiercely as you love people._

_Yours_

_Cassandra Pentaghast"_

She sighed aloud hoping that she would not lose him as a friend once she read him the letter. He had left her behind because he was hurt, right? This could, would fix it. She would make him understand.

"And there he is, the hero come save us all" said one of the lookouts. She jumped as Cassandra practically lunged to her side of the battlements to look. And sure enough there he was; a rider on one of the three horses not flying colors coming at a trot towards the fortress. The little ass struggling to keep pace was certainly Varric's and the massive northern charger was Bull's. A gift the Inquisitor had bought him at no small expense to himself personally. She narrowed her eyes as she tracked the quartet. Two of the horses were without riders and Bull seemed to be leading his mount by the reins, one rider astride it had Tevinter robes and the other with a bent posture was...

Cassandra cursed aloud, hissing and angry. As the group drew closer she could see the Inquisitor. His full cloak was drawn around him with the hood up and although she could not see his face, the expression on Dorian's as he rode the same mount Sergio was while holding onto him to keep him from falling signaled something terrible. She raced down the tower stairs three at a time to meet them down at the gate along with the crowd that always gathered to greet him whenever he returned.

She admonished herself silently as the loud clap of her footfalls echoed off the stone walls. Damn her! Damn her stupidity! Because of awkward feelings she had let him go without her and this time, the single time she had made a mistake is the time that finally did it, he was hurt and it was her fault.

"Maker so help you Cassandra if he is seriously hurt. The blood is on your hands for being a foolish woman, pining for what she cannot have rather than doing the right thing!" she quietly cursed as her heart drummed in her chest, more fear than exertion. And then it sank like a stone thrown into Lake Calenhad as the bright sun greeted her out of the darkness of the tower.

"Make way! He's hurt!" bellowed Iron Bull who was slick with sweat from running Maker knew how many miles on foot in full gear with his terrible axe sheathed on his back. The crowd parted instantly and once on grass he reached up gingerly to take the Inquisitor out of Dorian's embrace and carry him cradled in his arms to the surgeons. The Herald had always been lean and of slighter build but he'd always carried himself with purpose and vigor. Seeing him now, so weak in the Qunari's arms was too much to bear.

"What happened Bull!?" she shouted after him, asking the question that no one had the nerve to dare ask the mercenary but everyone was wondering.

"No time to talk. There might still be time to save them!" he replied, his muscles heaving as he bounded to the surgeon who was already opening his tool kit and gesturing him to come over.

"To save what?!"

"His eyes!"

Cassandra gasped as did the crowd. The surgeon pulled off Sergio's hood and there were the bloody bandages wrapped around his head, a sticky mess bled through them in two burgundy blotches across the eyes as he meekly tried to pull off the bandages to save the surgeon the effort of cutting them. She felt her knees go weak but she did not dare fall onto them. Enough weakness. This was her fault.

She would never be weak again.

Or be able to forgive herself.


	2. Lost Eyes and Discovered Insights

The surgeon grimaced at the mess that was the left side of the Inquisitor's face as she quickly laid out her scalpels, her saws, stitching needle and twine. Whatever had gored the side of his face had been big, shearing away skin like a giant blade or claw. The swelling was the worst of it as his face had gorged the local flesh with blood as local blood vessels had been torn open, but there was no skin to keep any of it in so half his face was awash with a scarlet mask of new blood and dried burgundy crusts where most of it had coagulated.

  
This was not a new wound, she realized.

  
"When did this happen? How did this happen?" she asked at all three of the men who came in with the Herald. Bull stayed close by, kneeling by the surgeon as Dorian stood behind him. Varric paced back and forth looking like he would pull out his hair.  
"Three days ago. Warhammer to the face, it seemed like a solid blow." answered Bull in the cold factual tone of a veteran of war as he kept all embellishment or unnecessary facts from the surgeon as to ease her assessment.

  
"It wasn't, Bull. He peeled away at the last second, the wolf's head of the warhammer caught the side of his head as it swung past him."

  
"Did he lose consciousness after the blow?"

"No, he just. Screamed."

  
"Was he responsive?"

  
"Uh, no. Varric and I tried to keep him calm but-"

  
"She is looking for a concussion, Dorian. No, he remained responsive after the pain subsided. I kept him awake. I gave him milk of the poppy to take the edge off. We did the best we could with the bandages."

  
"He has been awake for three days?" asked the surgeon as she finished cleaning off a long thin scalpel that would not have been out of place at a dining table.

  
"About two. He finally dozed off despite the pain last night. We kept a close watch on him."

  
The surgeon looked at the glint of her blade one more time before hesitating.

  
"My Lord Inquisitor. Can you hear me?"

"Yes" he croaked through cracked lips and bleeding gums.

  
"I need to cut into your face. The swelling on the left side is considerable. I will need to make an incision into your cheek and above your eyebrow to drain the hematomas. That way we can start to look for broken bones and see what the damage actually is."

  
Something between a whimper and a hiss escaped Sergio's lips as he nodded at the surgeon.

  
"Very good, I will be swift-" began the surgeon as she nicked the raw angry flesh of the Herald's ruined face before he screamed, loud and clear. She withdrew her tool as he kicked at the ground beneath him finding his voice.

  
He began to undo his belt before holding out his arm.

  
"Varric, hold my hand! Hold my god damn hand!" he snarled. His voice slurred as the words that he barked through gritted teeth came from someone trying to learn to speak again.

  
The dwarf came to his side immediately and kneeled next to him, whispering confident encouragements even as his face betrayed how anemic his confidence actually was. Folding his belt, then biting it, the Herald clenched his entire body as he nodded at the surgeon again as his pale fingers squeezed the dwarf's own as hard as he could.

  
The knife came again and so did a muffled cry, raw nerves aflame in every square centimeter of skin shrieked at the mind they were melded to.

 _Move_  
_Fight_  
_Run_  
_Get Away_  
_Stop_  
_Stop_  
_STOP_

  
A squirt of blood escaped his face as the surgeon dug into the hematomas, angry purple pools of blood under the skin, and the Herald's rigid arms snapped straight as hard as they could in an attempt it seemed to bend into themselves. Legs thrashed and kicked mutely as they scrambled for purchase on air. But his head remained still on the folded blanket's upon which it was laid.

  
The surgeon squeezed rapidly for the third time and had a good look at the gory evidence of the alleged warhammer's handiwork.

  
The Herald's left eye socket had been scrapped badly and although his eyeball seemed to have been pierced, the iris raked, it seemed to have sealed itself. That was at least one bit of good news, though she was sure it was ruined permanently. The other eye however was scarlet and bloody but it seemed otherwise to be relatively unharmed. Its focus seemed to be to escape to some point in the distance whenever the Herald managed to stop clenching his face and open it through the slant of his puffy eyelids.

  
"My lord, can you see my hand?" she asked as she covered his right eye and waved at his left.

  
"N-no"

  
"What about now?" she asked as she switched.

  
"I-I can see. Shadows."

  
The surgeon waved over two mage healers as she felt around the sides of his eye sockets. She couldn't find the telltale slants of bone that revealed fractures, though the biggest problem would be having the mages encourage the rapid regrowth of skin on his eye. A wound like his would be prone to infection, though small blessing that the dry frost of Skyhold wouldn't encourage it like the Fallow Mire would. The worst was to come however, servants would have to clean off the dried blood and additional detritus off of his face. It would be a painful and slow process.

  
"Heal the flesh as best as you can and channel some of that into his bones in case of hairline fractures to his skull. Then take him to the keep, have the servants clean off his face. Thankfully there is no gashes for me to stitch."

  
"What about his eyes?" asked Varric looking hopeful.

  
The hesitation on the surgeon's face was clear as she looked around her noticing the large crowd that had gathered from every segment of the Inquisition. Then she looked at the Inquisitor and said aloud the phrase she had so often told herself when she knew they wouldn't.

  
"They may get better. I can do no more. It's in the Maker's hands now."

  
She began to fold her equipment into her leather satchel before she felt a violent hand clasp onto the back of her neck.

  
"What do you mean he "might" get better?" snarled Cassandra, fury written all across her face. The surgeon withered under the glare as she mumbled explanations out of nerves.

  
"These are excuses! Remedy the damage done to him or I swear I will throw you off the wall-"

"That is enough Cassandra. She's done what she can."

The Seeker looked up slowly, galled by the temerity of the Qunari to order her.

"And what have you done?"

  
Iron Bull rose to his feet understanding the look on her face. He knew, he'd seen enough twisted faces to know when a fight was coming.

  
"What did you do to protect him, mercenary? The first and only time he leaves with you he nearly dies! You incompetent, horned, stupid, useless bastard!"

  
The crowd sensed the rage radiating off the Seeker and began to widen their circle. Iron Bull and Cassandra were two of the most proficient fighters in Skyhold, and no one wanted to be caught between them.

  
"Oh and I suppose you feel like you would have done a better job?" chimed in Dorian, no small amount of contempt and anger leering across his face.

  
"Ah, the Tevinter speaks! And what role did you have in all this? Perhaps you were too enamoured with the Qunari to even think of protecting the Inquisitor."

  
"This bitch!" snarled Dorian as he stepped forward to come to blows with her before Iron Bull placed one voluminous arm across his chest to stop him.

Unmoved and impassive the Qunari crossed his arms and glanced back the Inquisitor who was grimacing while still laying on the ground staring up listlessly at the cold sky as the mage healers tried to go about their work.

  
"Are you done, Seeker?"

  
Cassandra fumed and clenched her fists.

"Good, then blow it out your ass."

  
And with that the mercenary nudged Dorian and turned to walk away.

  
"How dare you! This is not over Qunari!"

  
"Oh yes it is. You heard the surgeon, they have done all they can and we cannot fight his injuries. As for your temper tantrum it is beneath you, and I am not going to waste my time listening to you bloviate because you feel guilty that you were not there to protect him."

  
The silent whispers of the wind echoed through the keep as everyone present held their breath. Cassandra clenched her jaw, enraged and ashamed in equal measure.

  
"Can you walk, buddy? Here, let's get these mages to take you to your room. We'll fix you up and get you nice and cozy." started Varric as he gingerly helped the Inquisitor sit up as some meager strength returned to his limbs.

  
"And you." started Cassandra bitterly. "How could you of all people have let this happen? Aren't you ashamed? You are his frie-"

  
"Be quiet, Cassandra!" screamed the Herald as he glared as much as his mangled face would allow in her direction.

  
The Seeker flinched, taken aback by the violence in his voice. Her mouth aped words in protest but not a sound would escape her throat.

  
With a groan, Sergio rose to his feet as the two mages and Varric began to help him up the step's of Skyhold's keep. She watched him go, bitterness swelling in her breast as she fought back tears of frustration.

  
"I truly am sorry." mumbled the surgeon as she hastily finished gathering her tools before leaving Cassandra there alone as the crowd dissipated all now somber. Some wished to be brave for the Inquisitor and no mean number of others felt dread that their invincible Herald had been so badly wounded.

  
He alone had returned to them after Haven burned.

  
Perhaps this was another test from the Maker?

  
Hours passed and Cassandra hacked furiously at the training dummies with her sword in the east courtyard as she vented alone. There was no form in it, no elegance to her technique, only the need to release. She hacked, slashed and stabbed into the dummy dozens of times. Shearing off bits of straw in the cloth sacks that made up its disdented abdomen. Or even snapping off arms or heads. She felt like a child again, uncontrolled and enraged like during decades earlier when her brother had been murdered. The feeling of helplessness of lack of control incensed her to the core of her soul. She could not protect the Herald, nor combat his injuries for him as she could demons. She was worthless.

  
Cassandra whipped her sword at the stony walls of the training area with a scream.

  
Breathing heavily she did not hear the soft footsteps of another approaching her.

  
"Seeker" exclaimed Varric.

  
She did not turn as her chest heaved. Feeling like she could puke kept her from looking at him, partially out of pride and in part because she felt angrier than she had when she'd discovered that Varric had hidden Hawke from her. She could kill him.

  
"Please, for his sake. Go see Sergio." he began, with guilt written all across his face.

  
"Why Varric? Bull is right. I cannot help him."

  
"Yes you can. You might not be able to stab what ails him but you can soothe it."

  
"Do not play games with me Varric. I can do nothing for him."

  
Some color returned to Varric's face as he crossed his arms and meandered a bit closer to the Nevarran.

  
"You know, sometimes I have no idea why Sergio has such a high opinion of you."

  
Cassandra turned her head to Varric as she stood straight. Something between murder and raw offense flashed in her eyes and the dwarf saw it for the delicate balance it was.

  
"He's always going on and on about what an amazing person you are and how he admires you-"

  
"Stop talking, dwarf. Right. Now." warned Cassandra, her eyes wide with something unsafe.

"Sergio needs you."

  
"I cannot help him!"

  
"You are choosing not to! And if you fail him now, it will haunt you and your doubts for the rest of your life."

  
"How can I fail him anymore than I already have!? I let him go alone because I was too foolish to find him and make sure he'd take me with him. And now he's blind and it is my fault" snarled the Seeker beating her chest.

Varric's face broke into surprise before he looked away to spare her dignity as Cassandra realized that two insular tears had escaped her eyes. She wiped them away instantly, fearful of what Varric had seen. What anyone might have seen.

  
"In the years to come, when we look back and wonder when did we lose him I will tell everyone it was today. He hides it well and puts up a brave face, but you are not blind. You know how much pressure he is under and how much he does not want to be here. And now he's probably lost his sight and he has no outlet for any of the stuff that is killing him inside. He won't talk to Mother Giselle and he barely talks to Bull, Dorian or I about what's eating at him because he feels that if he admits that he is scared and alone he is failing us and everyone else."

  
Cassandra stood there, eyes pained and voice silent hanging on Varric's every word.

  
"He needs you to be there for him. You don't need to do anything fancy, just nurse him. Comfort him. Let him know that he can lean on you."

The Seeker clenched her jaw as she did her best to regain her composure.

  
"This is a waste if time, I am a commander in the Inquisiton. We are not going to lose him, he is stronger than anyone here and I could better serve him by keeping everything in order."

  
"Blondie's got the troops in line, Leliana has our information networks buttoned up and Ruffles is ensuring we have a stellar reputation abroad. What's keeping you from going up there and being his fucking friend?"

  
"I-I am his friend! Its just-"

  
Varric rolled his eyes.

  
"And this is why I cannot understand why he loves you so damn much. You are so concerned with appearances and your pride that if I did not come down here to get your ass moving he'd be up there alone in his room with nothing but his mind and the eyes he's lost to keep him company. Tell you what, I will keep him company and when he asks me: Varric, where's Cassandra? I miss her so much, I couldn't stop whining about it for a month. I will tell him: she doesn't want to come see you because it would look like there may be some affection between you two."

  
Cassandra grunted loudly in exasperation before moving shoving Varric out of her way as she briskly made her way to the keep. She stopped only a few feet away as the dwarf's words sunk into her mind before turning and asking him more meekly: "Why would you say that he loves me, Varric?"

  
Varric managed a weak smile.

  
"Because it is so obvious that he fancies you. Not just to me but to everyone. He thinks the world of you and teases you accordingly. And I would venture a guess that you love him too."

Before she could protest Varric raised his hand politely.

  
"Its not a well kept secret, Seeker. He makes you laugh, at least once a week if not more. You always follow him around no matter where he goes and you always somehow just have to have your meals with him. And the way you _smile_ when he's happy. But really, what tipped me off was the way you looked at each other when we were coming back from that nastiness in the Storm Coast. You two snuggled up together under a motheaten tarp in an abandoned house and were talking that entire dreary night, all smiles and chuckles like young lovers out on a date. It was disgustingly cute, if I am going to be honest about it."

  
Her words failed her as she began to feel dreadfully out of place for not being at the Inquisitor's bedside at that very moment.

"It really is the way you look at each other."

  
"There is nothing between us."

  
"Don't bullshit a bullshitter."

  
The Seeker turned away and trotted towards Skyhold, ignorant of the relief on the dwarf's face as he plunked down on the snowy grass smiling as one does at a good deed finished.  
Cassandra tried her best not to run and to ignore the looks she drew from everyone after her fight with Dorian and Iron Bull earlier. She took the steps of the cold keep two at a time noticing the blueish quality Skyhold took as the sun set and the moon began to rise. The warm amber glow of brazier fires beckoned all living souls of Skyhold inside, away from the winter winds that were beginning to encroach on the fortress and lick at exposed skin.

  
Opening the large latched doors, she slipped inside where there was a bit of a gloomier quality. Foreign dignitaries from Ferelden and Orlais chatted busily amongst themselves waiting for statements from Josephine or going over their own information in the chessboard of politics in which now the Inquisition seemed like the most valuable piece, to use or to be used by.

  
Quietly she made her way to the left side of the hall next to the bladed throne of the Inquisitor. She noticed now as she always did, how the furniture sat at the end of the hall with the stained glass panel behind it. A giant Seeker's Eye hung in its vibrant sheet, resting its gaze on the entire hall. The chair itself however seemed to have a life of its own, sitting there crouched like a lion judging its dominion.

  
She understood why Sergio hated the throne so much.

  
Cassandra opened the door hoping no one noticed her go in but wearing the confidence to deflect any curiosity as to why she would be going in. Shutting the door behind her she found herself on the open hall way that led up to the Inquisitor's stairs. Lurching forward she began to cross the hall, very aware of the red eyed ravens that stood and chirped to themselves as they watched her ascend silently. Reaching the door to his room the Seeker pulled at the edges of her sleeves unsure of what to say.

  
Was he angry with her?

  
She opened the door and entered quietly, peering into the room she found it as it she remembered it when Sergio showed it off to her so long ago even through the shadowy light from his fireplace. His desk and shelves squatted in one corner of the room at such an angle that they would catch the winter sunrise as natural reading light. Not that he ever liked rising early, more of a habit as his life in the kitchens demanded.

  
Quickly, Cassandra felt something was wrong. The light from the fireplace was dying but despite this she could make out easily that Sergio's bed was empty and unmade.

  
She felt the bile rising in her stomach as a cold fear gripped into her mind.

  
Assassins?

Kidnappers?

Demons?

  
She drew her sword silently and strode into the room as she focused on hearing and squinting in the darkness. His balcony doors were closed and there was nothing out of place, despite his dissapearance. Then she heard it. A quiet gnawing sound and breathing. The Seeker stalked around Sergio's bed towards his closets in the darker side of the room and saw him sitting up on the floor with the door of his pantry slightly open.

  
Following the little trail of sheets and slightly ruffled rug she realized he had crawled out of bed because he was hungry.

  
Hungry and hurt.

  
Had it not occurred to him to call for help?

  
Approaching quietly she saw through the darkness the myriad of little nicks across his back and left arm. And the angry, opaque bruise on the left side of his face and shoulder. It crept like spilled ink into his left side, contrasting against his fair skin. He took dainty bites from bread and salted ham, he had a little cheese on his lap as well and he'd draw up a wine skin filled with Maker knew what but she could smell it from a dozen paces.

  
He shivered intermittently then rubbed at the gauze and bandages that were wrapped around his head covering both his eyes. The Inquisitor had crawled blindly, she'd realized. Cassandra felt angry for a moment. Angry that he'd be so foolish as to crawl in his own room and not call for help, she felt like picking him up and giving him a good talking to.

  
Varric's words crept into the forefront of her mind. She grimaced, as she asked herself how to comfort him. Sergio had clearly not heard her come in, so she'd likely scare him if she spoke. That was the first hurdle: should she gently pipe up or just sneak back out before knocking on the door?

  
Shit

  
She'd be leaving him alone in his undergarments, in a cold half-lit room.

  
Passing this; how could she nurse him? How could she comfort him? She was a warrior, a protector. Being a nurse seemed so banal by comparison. Something so simple that she ran the risk of doing it badly.

  
Her idle musings were interrupted as Sergio lolled backwards before laying on his side for an instant, and she chose to stand still and quiet as to not give him a fright. It broke her heart to see him like this, catching his breath as he gathered up the strength to crawl back. He did so slowly and laboriously, inch by inch he dragged his sore and bruised body back before stopping within arm's reach of her.

  
Cassandra froze as he craned his head towards her, his hands reached out feeling around the stone floor, probing for something. His finders eventually found her armored boots and his face contorted in confusion before feeling his way up to her shins and then he drew back sharply, covering his head as if expecting a blow. The Seeker felt her eyes water as she watched him hold his arms to defend himself from a downwards blow, just as she'd taught him. Though, she did note it had not crossed his mind to cry out for help or to challenge his unknown intruder. He was braced to fight.

  
Pathetically, but braced to fight.

  
She heard him sniff a few times before lowering his arms tentatively.

  
"Cassandra? If that is not you, then get out. I don't want visitors."

  
He scratched his goatee thoughtfully before amending "I'm sorry, that was rude. Go ahead and help yourself to some food. Let no one say that Antivans are inhospitable."

  
There was an unmistakable slur in his voice and a sharp scent of fermented apples in his breath.

  
The Seeker kneeled before reaching out to grab him gently and help him up. With a grunt he got to his feet unsteadily as she threw her arm around him to steady him. It came as a surprise as he spun drunkenly into her arms and pulled her into an embrace. He took a deep breath from her hair and neck as he held onto her before a genuine smile split his lips.

  
"It is you! I missed you so. So much, so much."

  
"Let's get you into bed, Sergio"

  
Slowly she guided him to his bedside where she tucked him in and he quietly, agonizingly found a comfortable position to curl into. He remained placid as she went to his fireplace and threw a few more logs in, properly split and arranged as to suck air into the flames properly. She stood straight wondering what to do next as the room became more brightly illuminated.

  
"You are very sneaky for a warrior" offered the Antivan as he turned his face towards the fire.

  
"If you thought I was quiet then, you should hear me in full armor" she joked weakly.

  
Sergio smiled.

  
"I missed you, _mi Dama_. I think I annoyed Varric by complaining about it. Though, I was not complaining or whining so much as la-men-ting your absence."

  
Cassandra frowned at this, her mind went to the letter she still had tucked into her pocket.

  
"Did you really?"

  
"Maybe."

  
She rocked on the balls of her heels awkwardly.

  
"Did you need anything?"

  
"Huh?"

  
"Did you need me to do something for you?"

  
"Like what?"

  
"Feed you? Help you move about? You know. Nurse you?"

  
Sergio furrowed his brow, "Well, I already got out of bed and ate something so I am ok."

  
"Very good." she replied curtly, feeling very uncomfortable and foolish. Had it been a mistake to come up?

  
"You know what I would like though?" asked Sergio, seeming now very pleased.

  
"What?" she asked, hopeful now that she would be instructed on what to do.

  
"You could, crawl into bed with me and keep me warm."

  
Cassandra felt a warm blush come to her face, her immediate thought was to say: No! But very quickly she understood what he wanted.

  
In the Storm Coast he, she, Dorian and Varric had found shelter in an abandoned house with more than a few holes in the roof. Having decided to wait out the worst of the rain inside it they huddled in the only corner without a floor and without a gaping hole above it before starting a small fire in the hard packed dirt. Varric and Dorian had struggled to find some warmth to seep into their frames but he had found an old sheet from the previous owners and offered to share it with her.

  
"Come, let us snuggle beneath this lavish blanket while our two friends freeze to death" he asked flirtatiously.

  
In reality he had felt guilty that his two companions had been soaked to the bone because of errant waves on the beach catching them unawares. So he had offered them full room by the fire while he and Cassandra found warmth elsewhere.  
They had both leaned up against the wall as Dorian and Varric talked amongst themselves of the finer pleasures of civilization, like heat and shelter.

  
It had occurred to him to pass the time by telling her stories of home and the so called seers that came to his home city every year during the summer carnivals. There he had learned to read palms from Dalish Keepers (who were city elves and nothing of the sort). She had laughed earnestly as he asked her to give him her palm. She'd removed her gauntlet, grinning all the while as he wove his story.

  
"It is said of course in the halls of power, whispered furtively, that Mr. Sergio is the greatest palm reader."

  
"Oh is it?" she chuckled.

  
"Indeed it is! So here, this semi-circle line that runs from your wrist to across your palm and around your thumb is your life line. It is very deep and well defined, like mine. It means you will have a long and healthy life." he said with conviction.

  
"A bold prediction for the life of a warrior." she replied with playful smugness as he traced the line with his fingers holding her hand in his.

  
Without missing a step he added: " And this line over here means you are an ass, who cannot tolerate being teased except irresistibly handsome and charming men from Antiva."

  
She punched him in the arm before offering her hand again, smiling all the while.

  
"You have a very high opinion of yourself, don't you mage?"

  
"Of course, if I don't think highly of myself then who will? Though there are a fair number who don't but they don't do so openly, people don't often realize it but crossing a cook is dangerous business."

  
"How so?"

  
"Well. Consider the following: you are a noble with a chip on your shoulder. And one day you tell yourself: I am Marcia Del Caballero, today I am going to be a shit to my liege's servants because I have a particular enjoyment out of making others uncomfortable. Especially, the head cook's son, who shall remain nameless, in order to protect his identity."

  
Cassandra laughed again before his story began to sink in, much like Varric's written novels Sergio's oral stories had a vivid life of their own. And sometimes there was some hidden detail that would clue one in on whether it was amicable embellishment or truth.

  
"Wait. Del Caballero is an actual family in Antiva is it not?"

  
"It is indeed, my dearest Seeker. Now, you being Marcia Del Caballero the one and only! You decide in your little mind that between being a bitch to this lowly cook's son or a cock tease for your own sadism in flaunting to him what he could never be expected to have, today you will get personal. Because it does not escape your notice that he seems to have acquired, as young boys of thirteen are oft to do, a pet. And his, is a pet lamb named Florentina De Las Flores named aptly for her love of eating flowers. Specifically over the last day, your flowers which you insist on bringing potted and with you to the city when your father visits and brings you along. And never once, despite multiple warnings or that Florentina who loves flowers seems determined to devour yours you leave them at a lamb's head level and unguarded."

  
At this point, Sergio's eye flickered to Dorian and Varric who were both listening with interest knowing that there was some epic conclusion to the story.

  
"So you say to your father's personal cook after discovering your ravaged daisies and tulips that you had a hankering for lamb chops that day for dinner."

  
For effect, he paused and glanced around. His three companion's faces bespoke investment in his quadrupedal heroine's fate. "Oh shit" muttered Varric.

  
"And so it was that you led your father's man to where the cook's son had tied up Florentina for being bad and he slaughtered her only a little time after. The man spent a great deal of time I was told, lavishly preparing the lamb chops and flanks and chopping up the rest for a stew for the next night. And even preparing an extra plate for a certain young man, to join you for dinner as a peace offering of sorts. And he shall remain nameless, in order to protect his identity! After the sun set, you sought him out being of course the clever girl you are Marcia Del Caballero and invited the cook's son to supper. He seemed a little unsure of himself at the time, concerned whether it would be polite to refuse you or not, and perhaps a little distracted as if he was looking for a missing pet."

  
"Sergio, did this really happen?" asked Cassandra, incredulity written across her face. Not so much for the outlandishness of it but for the casual cruelty of the young woman.

  
"What do you mean, my dear? I am just telling a story about a cook's son, Marcia Del Caballero, the boy's lamb and a stallion. But he comes in later that one. So, you invite him to dinner and he at length accepts. Gleefully you watch him enjoy the lamb chops set on the table for two, he praises your father's cook earnestly for the care with which the plate was prepared and served. Clearly it had been done by a master of the kitchen. And it was only after he'd finished it were you happily surprised because before you could reveal the deception he asked for seconds! Smugly, you look across from the candlelit table at this cook's son. Thirteen winters old and enthusiastic about this sudden change in your demeanor, how kind you were. He praised you as well, saying how nice you were and how pretty your dress was. And then you sprung it, the grand reveal as you rub his father's name into the dirt for being a lesser man of the pots and pans. And then you see them: tears of victory! The cook's son cries like a babe as he accepts that he'd eaten his first pet, as punishment for it having eaten your precious flowers. You leave, fully satisfied with your meal. Leaving him there to his misery."

  
Smirking, Sergio continued his story with a conspiratorial tone.

  
"But unbeknownst to you, the cook's son would not take this murder and betrayal lying down, no sir! But you are Marcia Del Caballero, and thus beyond retaliation. And it is this fact indeed that blinds you to his movements, his wandering eyes and thinking mind. So a few days later it comes that you comment, perhaps a bit too loudly that you are so proud of your black stallion. A horse too large for you to ride but of unparalleled beauty that your father had bought for you on your sixteenth birthday. It was notoriously ill-tempered and your noble upbringing made you ignorant to the common practices of castrating farm animals as well as its deliberate use for the aggressive bulls or stallions as a way of mellowing them out. And so one afternoon you go visit your stallion and the first thing that strikes you is how gentle and calm he seems when you come to offer him an apple. As you round his person you notice something missing: his two huge balls."

  
"Oh, Maker's Breath!" began to laugh Dorian.

  
"You are incensed! Who could have mutilated your horse? Who would have ordered such a thing? You are positively shrieking and demanding to know who it was. But the stablehands nor the horsemaster seem to know a thing. And unbeknownst to you, cooks pick up a variety of skills throughout their years dealing with people, food and animals. Some of them know a thing or two about raising chickens, hammering out dents in pots, deftly redirecting drunken nobles or even castrating unruly farm animals. So standing there alone, fuming and furious you are approached by the cook's son who brings you a Shepard's Pie. He claims it is a peace offering, begging you spare him of any more of your attentions, or his pets for that matter. This gratifies you, he was well and truly put in his place, though it does perhaps escape your notice that despite the words and his contrition he is watching you too closely as you eagerly devour the pie, relishing how you slurp up the two huge meaty chunks hiding in the dish."

  
Varric began to cackle too, thinking that Sergio was the bravest cook he'd ever met.

  
"And so it was that this upstart reveals to you his own deception! You'd just devoured your own horse's jambags. And predictably you vomit and then threaten to have him killed. With a cool malice born only to the evilest people in Thedas he counters that in order to have him punished you'd have to reveal the nature of the offense and the mere castration of a prize horse was no grounds for corporal punishment if she could even prove that it was him in fact who had done the deed. Or why he had done so really. And so you leave defeated armed with the knowledge that for the rest of your life, the cook's son could tell others that she'd eaten her own stallion's balls if you ever picked on him again."

  
Cassandra began to laugh in earnest with the rest, while Sergio smiled triumphantly at them.

  
"Holy shit! That was the best!" wheezed Varric.

  
Sergio did a mock bow for his audience before clunking back down next to Cassandra who began to lean on him in the easy way comrades in arms do. He took her hand back into his underneath the blanket and squeezed it in a way that lingered just a bit too long just to be friendly.

  
"Indeed. Though it was only a week later that Marcia Del Caballero decided to frame my father for the theft of some pearl necklace of hers."

  
The laughing stopped.

  
"I was so mad. She came to tell me before she went to find the Prince to tell him what his servant had done. That's when I had first done magic in public."

  
Sergio's thumb traced little circles meaningfully around the back of Cassandra's palm as he interlaced his fingers with hers.

  
"My father and our family means everything to me. I couldn't allow her to sully our name, our good reputation over petty revenge between us. If her father pressed the Prince we would have been cast out. So, I did the only thing I could think of: I punched her in the face. She over-powered me and started beating me savagely. That's when I burned her neck. Didn't mean to, I was so scared. Not only because I hurt her, but how I had done so. Magic my father told me was supremely dangerous and if anyone found out about the lyrium in my blood they would take me away. The Prince's men arrested me and the templars came and got me a week later. At least I got to say goodbye to my whole family. The Del Montes, all of them looked like they were sending me off to die. I don't think there was a dry eye on any of their faces."

  
"If they could see me know. I wonder what they would think. I was the very first mage in the entire family you know? My uncle Carso even offered that I should be made Tranquil, anything to keep the family together and to keep the demons away from his nephew."

  
Cassandra squeezed his hand.

  
"I think they would be proud of you."

  
Sergio smiled back at her, "I hope so. But what I really want right now is for you to crawl into our luxurious bed and keep me warm."

  
He held onto her hand until he fell asleep leaning comfortably on her shoulder, there was an ease with which he did so. A safety in being with her that did not escape any present.

  
The Seeker smiled at the memory and sat on the bed as she began to take off her cuirass followed by her scabbard and armored boots. She considered for a moment how quick she had been to jump in with him regardless of her internal protestations or what she'd said to him a month ago on the ramparts.

  
This was hardly the conduct of a platonic friend.

  
She pulled up the blanket and sat against the wall as she covered her legs, she undid a few buttons on her tunic as she readjusted a pillow behind her. Sergio tussled under the covers before peeking out, eyes still covered and he found his way to laying his head on her lap and throwing an arm around her waist. He seemed well and truly drunk now.

  
"You are so soft."

  
"So you keep saying." said Cassandra as she forced herself to touch his head and run her hands through his hair as to defeat the expectation that something was going to bite her if she did. Her mind wandered in silence with her thoughts as she looked at the Inquisitor resting his head on her lap with the same ease he had before. He couldn't be angry with her, not if he was doing this.

  
Or was he doing it because of the liqueur?

  
"Sergio."

"Si?"

  
"Why did you leave me behind?"

  
She felt his arm squeeze her reassuringly for a moment.

  
"I had to take care of all that nastiness in Orlais. And I know what you are going to say, I know you could have helped just fine. I left you behind deliberately, and one day if the time is right I will tell you why you could not come with me."

  
Cassandra pinched his wrist lightly in retaliation, not even enough to elicit an "ouch" from him.

  
"Don't do that."

  
"Then don't leave me behind."

  
"I am the Inquisitor, and you are telling me what to do?"

  
"Someone has to sometimes."

  
The Seeker frowned slightly, something between pain and sadness flashed across her face plainly and without need to be hidden because of her blind companion.

  
"I mean it Sergio."

"I know you do."

  
"Are you sure? Because its been hellish waiting for you to come back. And when you do you do so maimed despite being with those three fools-"

  
"Cassandra, stop it."

  
"No. Their job is to protect you and they didn't, if I had been there I could have done something."

  
With a lurch Sergio sat up in bed, slowly he felt around his face before slowly pulling off the bandages on his face. Cassandra sprung to stop him before he surprised her.

  
He took her hands in his and kissed them. With a flourish of his accent he said: "Let me look at you plainly. I haven't seen your face in one month and I won't wait another day to do so."

  
Weakly he pulled them off as Cassandra's hands moved of their own accord to help him.

  
The ruin of his face was terrible to behold that morning, but if there was any comfort to be had it was in the degree of attention the mages had granted their fellow in healing him. A carpet of scab and pink skin had formed where that morning there had been raw flesh, his last scrape was nearly healed and she expected another battery of healing for him the next day.

  
His left eye's iris was distended and ripped to the side giving it an unearthly sort of wrongness about it. His right however was still very bloodshot but the rich brown eye was drinking in her face, and it glowed with the soft joy that Sergio's face so often did.  
So absorbed was Cassandra that she didn't notice as Sergio's hand came to stroke the side of her face. She caught it before it left her skin and held it to her cheek. The Seeker froze for a moment in time, her mind ripping through the fresh memory and thoughts of what she had just done. Getting into bed with this man, and being his comfort felt like the most natural thing in the world. She'd slid into the role so easily she realized because there was something else in her. Something that Varric had seen, months before she had even begun to entertain the idea.

  
She wanted to protect him and stand by his side, sword at the ready against whatever came. He was her friend.

  
But there was also something in there that rose with the blooming warmth and excitement in her heart.

Something selfish.

  
Cassandra looked into his eyes, imperfect as they now were and she sought a sign. An answer. Was this meant to be? In coming to know the Antivan who sat with her as well as having witnessed the extraordinary events that had led this very otherwise common person to the height he had now risen to, she felt an awareness. The synchronicity of the universe and the will of the Maker, in how a cook's son who had grown to want nothing more than to help people and a million tiny decisions of his own and of others had granted him the power to change the world. He was exactly what Thedas needed, exactly when it needed it. And he wanted her. Varric had said he loved her. _Loved her_. Was this the will of the Maker? A gift?

  
"I was considering kissing you, _mi Dama_. But you seem to look rather like you are trying to hold in a fart."

  
The Seeker ripped away from him and punched him in his right and as of then newly injured arm. Sergio began to laugh earnestly as he clutched it protectively.

 

"You are the biggest shit in Thedas! Do you know that? You are the worst!"

  
Grinning and fully satisfied with the declaration Sergio curled back into the covers and laid his head back onto her lap where her hands began to run through his hair again.

  
"I hope you do not take it personally, _mi Dama_. But I am still courting you."

  
"Oh, are you now?" she replied with a little rosiness on her cheeks as the topic switched back over.

  
"Yes, I didn't forget about our talk on the battlements."

  
"As I recall, I told you no."

  
"And as I recall, you looked very sad and told me my being the Inquisitor "changes everything". Hardly a rejection, and it does not change what I want or how I feel."

  
"It was not a challenge my lord. You needn't go through in trying just because I told you you couldn't."

"Go through with what?" asked Dorian as he came around the open door.

  
Cassandra jumped with a start freezing back into her old distant role of professional protector as he came into their private sanctuary. It had been a shitty jerk back into reality.

  
"Nothing, Tevinter."

"Oh? Did I interrupt something intimate?"

  
"You've interrupted nothing of the sort, Dorian."

"Alright, its just one jumps to conclusions seeing the fearsome and capable Seeker of Skyhold in bed with the lord of this fortress. His head resting on her lap and her tunic unbuttoned."

  
Quickly Cassandra's fingers snapped two buttons closed sealing the very little skin she had revealed and wearing her tunic like she would when encasing it in armor. Her eyes bored into the mage's own, angry at the insinuation and the intrusion.

  
"So what are you doing here?"

  
"I would ask you the same question."

"Maybe I am here to hop into bed with Sergio, since that seems permissible. No, I thought to bring him some milk of the poppy from Iron Bull and check up on my gallant friend."

  
"I am taking care of him, something you seem incapable of doing properly."

 

"Tsk tsk Seeker. I've never seen someone so defensive who was about as useful as an iron doorstop and about as loving."

"Both of you stop it right now." exclaimed the Herald, now sitting up and looking very tired.

  
"Please, Dorian you are my best friend. I love you to pieces and you know how much I care about Cassandra, don't pick on her. And you, don't antagonize Dorian, he cares about my well being do not imply that he does not. I hate being in the middle of you two."

  
Dorian pursed his lips lightly as he pulled up a chair by the fireplace and sat in it opposite from them both as he produced a wine skin and handed it to Cassandra to give to him.

"So, how are you feeling my friend?"

  
Sergio took a quick drag from the wine skin, then slowly draining it before their eyes.

  
"Wonderful. The worst part is the ache from my left eye, its sharp, like the nerve was bruised."

  
"I would imagine that is unpleasant indeed. Though I assume your sight's returned to your right eye?"

  
Craning his head around to the fire then to Dorian's face then Cassandra's he sat there thoughtfully as the milk settled in his stomach.

  
"It has. The mages did a wonderful job. Its just difficult to focus on anything or to readily see details. Its like: your mind is very large and its used to having two windows to look out of to see everything, but now there is only one and its not large enough. It will take some getting used to. But I can see your perfect teeth from here."

  
Dorian laughed as he leaned back comfortably gratified.

  
"You know, we should get you and eyepatch. We could have one made especially for you. Hard leather on the outside with felt on the inside, it could have two straps or three. Probably should go with three because you won't be following a still lifestyle with gentle company. We could have a child draw an open eye on it, or a daisy."

 

Sergio smirked to himself as his expression began to soften and he found his head's way back onto Cassandra's lap. Her hands held it gently as she made herself run her fingers through his soft black hair. Company be damned.

  
"It really would make you quite a hit with the ladies."

  
The Seeker scoffed.

  
"But not I'm afraid with the man on who's lap your head currently rests on."

  
"Dorian" Sergio warned before the Tevinter held up his hands in contrition.

  
The three sat there in silence each in their own thoughts. Dorian's eyes rested on the fire now blazing as if his mind were elsewhere and in another time. Cassandra watched him intermittently, looking at the gentle slope of the Inquisitor's small ears wondering what Dorian would blather to other people. A mild, quiet snore escaped Sergio's mouth as he had slumped back into deep sleep with aid of the poppy milk.

  
"You know Seeker, I did mean to find you and speak with you."

Cassandra did not deign to look away from her attentions towards the Inquisitor as she looked for non-existent injuries hiding beneath his hair.

  
"It took me some time to find the right words. To tell you what happened, it all went by so quickly its hard to recall exactly what happened, if I am going to be honest."

  
The Seeker snapped her gaze towards Dorian.

  
"It does not matter what happened or what you could have done. He's hurt and it happened on your watch." she said dryly.

  
"So it does not matter that he sought this injury out?"

  
She looked at him, narrowing his eyes in confusion.

"It had been on the way back from Orlais. Some rebels calling themselves Freemen had been terrorizing the local farmlands of loyalists of the Empress, they had taken exception with their "feeding the tyranny of the crown". So they started to burn down farmhouses. Naturally our gallant Inquisitor intervened."

  
Leaning back into his chair and looking back into the fire the Tevinter continued the story.

  
"The sun had been merciless and the few scattered fires from the houses had spread to the fields. We couldn't breathe, the curtain of smoke was so thick. Bull led us out of the worst of it and into a small clearing where the Freemen were about to execute the farmers for treason against the Orlesian people. We charged and we killed them. But because of the smoke we didn't see the others who came in or hear them for that matter. Varric was in our rear line, firing. And this chevalier, who I swear was Qunari-sized hefted a huge hammer and was about to bring it down on his head. Before I could cry out a warning Sergio used Fade Walk and barreled into Varric to knock him out of the way. That's when the hammer caught him. Bull, nearly ripped the chevalier's head off for it."

  
Sympathy crept into Cassandra's visage as his story continued. They couldn't save Sergio from himself. She felt foolish and regretted admonishing them.

  
"I will never forget how Sergio stood there for a moment, his face wet and his skin and eye torn before collapsing onto his knees, screaming. He started firing off spells in their general direction. He missed the troop by a mile but he did catch a few of them. After the fighting was over Varric yelled at him, I've never seen him so angry. He'd demanded to know why Sergio would do something so stupid when the entire world depended on him. And do you know what Sergio had said?"

  
Cassandra wracked her brain, attempting to predict what would have fallen out of his mouth at that moment.

  
"He said: Because I love you."

  
The Tevinter sat there in silence as he took in Cassandra's expression, something between concern and admiration as she cradled the Inquisitor's head on her lap.

  
"Dorian, I'm sorry."

  
He nodded solemnly.

  
"I accept your apology. We were all heated and scared for him, we said things we should not have." he replied before looking at Sergio.

  
"Though, I will venture a guess that Varric feels very guilty for what happened."

  
"Do you think so?"

  
"Without a doubt. Varric values his friends above all things, and I am certain he holds himself responsible for Sergio's ravaged eye."

  
Cassandra began to wonder if Varric's entire talk about her going to help him was motivated by altruism or by guilt.

  
Perhaps both.

  
"I beg you Cassandra. You can reach him in a way I cannot, because he wants to lay his heart bare to you. Take care of him."

  
The Seeker looked at Tevinter for a long moment before dropping all pretense and managing a nod.

  
"Good."

  
Both Tevinter mage and Nevarran seeker sat in silence, at that moment tentative friends for the sake of their loved one. The tension eased out of the room like a dandelion suddenly made naked and bereft of seeds by a hot dry wind.

  
"Did you know he has a pantry in his closet, Dorian?"

  
"Haha! Does he really? You really cannot take the kitchen peasant out of him."

  
"Indeed you cannot." she added with a smirk.

Dorian smiled thoughtfully as she continued.

  
"He was so excited when he claimed this room. He'd never had so much space to live in his life, he just had to come get me and show it all off."

  
"I can see that, he really is very excitable. He sang Antivan songs on the way here from Haven, to try to keep morale up. He can play the guitar but cannot sing to save his life."

  
"I know, I heard him. But he kept the people laughing and cheerful. He's never once succumbed to doubt, I wish I had his confidence."

  
At that Dorian's expression became more grave.

  
"He's not invincible, Cassandra. When he got hurt he went down a road I'd never seen him go before. It may have just been the pain but he became cynical and morose after losing his eye. Hateful even towards the Freemen. It struck me as strange because when have you ever known him to hate anyone? I think he may have had an anxiety attack after his sight did not return to him the following day and he swore he'd burn the Freemen to ash without leniency or exception. Beneath the surface there's a current I really don't like."

  
Cassandra listened as she heard echoes of what Varric had told her. But these words were Dorian's, and the worry was clear. She wondered if Iron Bull was also aware of the so called current.

  
"He may talk to you about whatever is bothering him. When we prodded him about it he insisted he was just being silly and that he would be fine in a week. This smacks of like how my father used to drink instead of addressing the problems in our family. But people who don't have a way to release tend to explode in my experience."

  
"How do they explode?"

"Well, my former master joined a world ending cult with a darkspawn magister for a figurehead as an outlet for his grief. I am just concerned about what should happen if Sergio goes off the deep end as well. No one is as perfect as he is, as he pretends to be."


	3. How Hearts Lay Bare

"You recall Gereon Alexius of Tevinter. The fereldan crown has granted him to us as an acknowledgement of your aid. The formal charges are apostasy, enslavement and attempted assassination. On your own life no less. The Tevinter Imperium has formally disowned him and stripped him of his lands, title and position. You may judge him as you see fit."

  
Sergio sat uncomfortably on his bladed throne, each sword fanning out behind him giving him the appearance of some martial peacock as he regarded the man before him. Josephine flanked him five steps to his left as she took account of her notes in the worn ledger she was so often seen with.

  
"I still have nightmares of the future that awaited us had his treachery succeeded." he remarked to Josephine.

  
"I could not save my son. Do you honestly think my fate matters to me?" replied Alexius. The misery was plainly cut into his face.

  
"Will you offer nothing more in your own defense?" asked Josephine with a hint of pity in her voice.

  
Alexius looked at the Inquisitor with weary eyes, little more than grief and cynicism glowered inside them.

  
"You've won nothing. All the people you've saved, the acclaim you've gathered. It will all be washed away in the coming storm. Render your judgement, Inquisitor."

  
Cassandra looked at Sergio from her corresponding position mirroring Josephine from his right. Truthfully she did not need to protect him, he was in the very heart of his fortress and there were no less than a dozen soldiers in the hall. But in the two weeks after he had returned from Orlais with a ruined eye she had devoted herself to little other than coordinating with Leliana to find the remaining seekers or to look after him. Not that he was in need of a nurse, the daily and extensive attentions of the best healers in Skyhold had ensured a remarkably recovery, but all else being equal she could not stand to be away from him.

  
She was concerned about seeing him in judgement for the first time however. The Inquisition was expected to be a nexus of justice in southern Thedas and that not only included righting wrongs but also to mete out punishments to the guilty. This was something she knew Sergio had been dreading for weeks.

  
 Sergio cupped his chin in his hand and furrowed his brow, his eyepatch seemed to follow like a third cheek on his face as it inched forward while he delved deep into thought.

  
The room remained silent for a few long minutes until Sergio rose from his throne and brushed at his shirt before stepping forward casually. The way he approached the former magister struck Cassandra as strange, it was almost caring in its body-language.

  
"Gereon" he began as he came within arms reach of the chained Tevinter.

  
Refusing to look at him the man continued to gaze at his feet.

  
"Did you love Felix?"

  
The former magister's eyes rose to meet the Antivan's own. A small spark of defiance came to them at the mention of his dead son. The kind of look that would brook no ill word spoken about Felix.

  
"There it is. I've seen that look before on my own father's face. I would venture a guess that you and he were extremely close, since he was a child even."

  
"Since the day he was born, I've wanted nothing less than to give him the best and happiest life I could."

  
"I do not doubt that. Dorian told me that you wished to reform the Imperium, once."

  
"It was a meaningless dream. The Imperium is too big for any one person to change. And all of that stopped mattering when my wife was killed and Felix became sick."

  
"I refuse to believe that. Look at what is around you Gereon. The people who are here are just average people bound together towards one extraordinary end. You could have been the man who set the example that would have inspired others to come together in Tevinter."

  
Alexius began to laugh, it a hollow and empty sound.

  
"You are unbearably naive, Inquisitor."

  
Sergio smiled earnestly.

  
"No more than Corypheus I assure you."

  
"Your glibness will not do you any favors with the Elder One."

  
"Don't address him so formally Gereon. He is likely the oldest thing in Thedas and he has the power and the means to rend the world asunder. And I am his nemesis, his great rival. Do you know who I am?"

  
The Inquisitor held out his arms, holding himself bare for the former magister to behold.

  
"I am a bastard. And a little over a decade ago I could envision no other life other than one that involved peeling potatoes and roasting pigs. And now I am the challenger to this demigod. He is not all-powerful. If anything, my very existence and relationship with our mutual friend should prove that no one is so mighty that they cannot be challenged. Believe me Gereon, we will win."

  
A shred of doubt crept into the Tevinter as the Antivan continued speaking. He entertained the words in his mind, gradually warming up to them like a moth towards a light.

  
"I believe in you Gereon. You were Dorian's mentor, the man to whom he compared all others he told me. And you are Felix's father, your son was one of the bravest people I ever had the privilege to meet. He defied you and everything you sacrificed to save him in order to save _you_. Your son loved you, and I believe that if you come back to us you can live up to the lost legacy of your child. Rather than being remembered as the son of a traitor he could be remembered as the son of a hero, who despite losing everything defied a god for the good of all and the world that was his child's birthright to enjoy and brighten."

  
Pride swelled in Cassandra's heart as she watched in how cunning a fashion Sergio wove his words, not only cleverly using the remaining thing left to the man - the memory of his son- to motivate him to turn away from Corypheus but the warmth in them. He was a redeemer at heart, he wanted to help others become better. Even those who meant to kill him, once.

  
"Join us Gereon Alexius. The magic that you discovered was theoretically impossible, bend that mind of yours to aiding the Inquisition and I myself will set you free once this is all over."

  
The former magister looked at Sergio for a long while, like a dead man being offered medicine. And despite the lackluster in his attitude, he took Sergio's hand and firmly shook it.

  
"For my son."

  
"For Felix. Gereon Alexius, I hereby sentence you to servitude in the Inquisition. You will aid the mages in their research, under strict guard by templars, until such a time where your expertise is no longer needed. Then you will be free to do with your life as you will."

  
The two guards flanking Alexius removed the manacles and led the man away. No longer hunched he strode with a fraction of renewed confidence towards the keep's door.

  
Sergio glanced for an instant at Dorian who leaned against a pillar, watching the whole exchange in silence. Each held the other's gaze for a moment, unspoken words between them before Dorian nodded emphatically.

  
Varric leaned out from behind the little table in the far corner of the hall as he shook his head with a genuine smile. His quill scribbled furtively at a sheet of paper spread out before him. "And the Inquisitor was too good to be true, I realized. It occurred to me then as he spared the life of the man who had so aptly tried to murder him before that he was perhaps a demon in disguise. This was of course the only seemingly possible explanation for the Herald's attitude. The shoe seemed to fit all to snugly. He was not a drunk, nor was he haughty, nor was he a lecher. And he didn't even have a temper. When people are too good to be true, in my humble experience, they tend to be just that. So, if he were a demon with some contrived plan to destroy the world by saving it, I would like to be able to say "called it". Besides on the off chance that he is not a demon, people like that shouldn't exist on the gods' green earth. They make all the rest of us look bad."

  
The Herald looked back at the Seeker as Josephine reoriented herself on where she had left off in her notes. He smiled at her and she returned the grin. Though it was with a touch of sadness hiding behind the expression, somewhere in the back of her mind she felt he was acting strangely, furtively even, like he was trying to hide something from her. It was sometime during those first few days when he relied on her for everything and the two weeks thereafter when he rapidly began to regain his strength and adjust to life without an eye, he had ceased with his amorous attentions towards her and resumed with his usual cocky teasing.

  
Far from her to pout, she thought to herself, but was it just the liqueur that had made him insist that he would court her? What had changed? They had not made any sort of declaration of love but she'd heard the whispers around the keep about the closeness between them. A span that had only shrunk to nothingness by other's reckoning since after she'd begun to nurse him. She'd even heard the Chargers joking that she was his shrewish wife.

  
It pissed her off.

  
Had he forgotten? Or had he not meant it at all? Had he changed his mind?

  
"We have only one more visitor for court today, Your Worship."

  
Sergio craned his head back towards Cassandra and smiled again, elated that the ordeal was done for the time being. "Lunch afterwards?"

  
"I present to you Violette de la Foix, Templar from the annulled Circle of Ostwick."

  
Cassandra watched as the Herald's smiling visage shattered into one of utter shock, a glimmer of horror burned behind his expression as he slowly turned towards the fore. His fingers shook as all the blood drained out of his face. The templar that stepped forward from the procession walked with the easy grace of a dancer, form fitting armor clasped onto her body and a large tower shield bearing the templar sigil was strapped to her back. A fine sword with a red leather wrapped handle was strapped smartly to her belt. The warrior removed her helmet revealing a beauty only hinted at from the grace of her demeanor. A young woman about Sergio's age, still fresh faced as he was despite being past the spring of youth. Bright blue eyes flashed at him and flawless golden hair hung like lace from her head. Thin coquettish lips managed a timid smile.

  
"Hello, my love." she managed with a thick Orlesian accent.

  
Josephine looked back at Sergio as did every soul present. Her declaration escaped no one's ears, nor did his tension and discomfort. Though Cassandra having fought alongside Sergio for the longest did see the signs in his body that he was preparing himself to act to violence. His hands clenched into fists hard enough that his knuckles were white. His bright eyes became mirthless and cold. 

  
"Erm, yes. Madam de la Foix has come offering her services as well as a number of Templar who were detained in the keep who came with her. She claims that her intent is to serve you specifically."

  
Sergio's feet jerked forward with anxious energy before he took a few steps towards her down the steps of his throne. Violette opened her arms and strode forward beckoning him into an embrace with very clear joy and relief on her face.

  
"Don't you dare mock me. Not after you have entered my house unbidden and unannounced." warned the Inquisitor with a trembling voice. A bubbling anger simmered from the pit of his stomach as the veins in his neck throbbed.

  
The Templar's hands fell to her sides as she look at him confused.

  
"I have not mocked you, my love. I simpl-"

  
"You will never call me that again. Do you hear me?

  
Violette's eyes fell to the ground before reaching back into his again, pleading.

  
"Forgive me, Sergio."

  
"You will not speak my name."

  
Tears rolled out of the Inquisitor's eye.

  
"You will not speak my name to beckon me to you in friendship. Not after all you've done and all the lives you've ruined, traitor."

  
At that, Violette bristled.

  
"I am not a traitor! We both served the Circle of Ostwick."

  
Tears stopped streaming down Sergio's face as the anger twisting his expression passed and his visage became an impassive mask. His trembling stopped and his nervous energy smoothed. His gaze extended to regard everyone in the hall.

  
"As lord of this keep, I order every soul present to remain quiet and still."

  
The silence in the hall was deafening. Even Alexius and his two escorts had frozen by the door, obeying the dreadful tone in Sergio's voice.

  
"You say you've come to serve me, Violette? Is this all you have come to do?"

  
The Templar looked around nervously, catching the eyes of the few templars in the room. None of them returned her look reassuringly or sympathetically.

  
"I-Yes. When I heard you had become the Herald of Andraste, I knew that my place was at your side. A sword for you to wield to vanquish the enemies of Thedas. Together as it should be: mage and templar as one."

  
"So you've not come to confess your sins?"

  
Violette's hand unconsciously fell to the pommel of her sword.

  
"Oh yes. It was with that sword that you cut my face after I spared your life." Sergio snarled quietly as he drew the line across the scar on the left side of his face that ran from the edge of his mouth across his cheek to his earlobe.

  
"I-I am sorry, Your Worship."

  
Sergio drew himself up as his hand slowly reached out and by life of its own his bladed staff came floating to his hand. Violette's knuckles turned white as she leveled her shield before her defensively and her other hand drew her sword.

  
Scanning the room once more to see if his order was still being obeyed his eyes fell to Violette's own trembling eyes now sitting inside her helmet.

  
"I accept your apology. Now, allow me to speak my mind." he offered politely as he stabbed his staff at her and a ball of fire materialized before it and slammed into the shield with the force of a ballista.

  
This was met by screams that were quickly muted as Violette was thrown off balance and onto her heels by the violence of the blow. Her training took over as she dropped her weight forward and held her sword like a hidden stinger ready to stab at her opponent, only when the smoke cleared did she see the telltale blue mist that followed Fade Walk and the felt a hammer-blow against the back of her head followed by the stab into the back of her knee.

  
She screamed earnestly before slashing out in desperation and surprise. Her opponent, his face now contorted with pure hatred danced out of with way with contempt.

  
"Sergio, please stop!"

  
"How many of our friends begged you the same way before you killed them!" he roared at her as he slashed and stabbed at her guard, using her lack of mobility and his longer reach to batter her with impunity. Another fireball knocked her backwards again but this time onto her rear, she covered her chest with her shield as Sergio lunged forward and put his entire weight behind impaling her. Deftly she blocked and rolled the shield off her to her side, knocking the mage and the staff beneath him onto the floor. Violette stabbed wildly as Sergio abandoned his staff and rolled back onto his feet. Unthinking she rose back her feet and charged him. He was a mage without his weapon. Nevermind he was in his own fortress and nevermind he assumed a pugilist's stance she would have recognized as belonging to the training of seekers in techniques to defend oneself against armed opponents when unarmed.

  
Sergio swung away from her as she slashed past him, then striking straight as if marking her with a punch from outside arm's reach when a green light broke before her followed by blackened stony glass. It rocketed to her and struck her back as she was thrown thirty feet away and onto the ground before the stones dissipated like so much light through mosaic glass.

  
"I spent so many years fearing templars and it was the likes of cowards like you that killed us at Ostwick!" he snarled as he strode forward to close the distance with her.

  
"It was not meant to happen that way, Sergio! What happened was not my fault!"

  
"Not your fault!?" shrieked the Herald as he raised another fist and threw it launching another stony reflection at her.

  
"Who filled my head with dreams? Who gave me the vision of a world without Circles? Who turned her back on all of it as soon as the world began to change?"

  
Violette dove out of the way, landing hard on her wounded leg. Her eyes looked up, begging for succor from anyone present. But the crowd moved away from them like strands of wheat around currents of wind. Templar, mages, soldiers or dignitaries.

No help was coming.

  
"Sergio, please!"

  
"No! You knew what you had changed me into. You always knew. And when I told the Knight-Commander what we mages had chosen for ourselves what did you do? He ordered us killed down to the last, elder and child alike and you obeyed!" he screamed at her, pointing his finger and the accusation like a spear.

  
Snarling he launched another stone at her before it dissipated like a clump of sand thrown into water. Everyone present felt the wash of the aura of the templar as it dispelled the magic. With no small measure of anger in her eyes Violette stood up and lunged at the mage, cutting more precisely as the full measure of her discipline took over. Her hobbled leg prevented her from pressuring Sergio as much as she could have. But to her horror as she stabbed and he danced around the steel and his hands snapped forward and clasped around her sword hilt and bent inwards. With a scream she struck him across the face with her shield to make him relinquish his grip on his disarming hold.

  
With another striking open palm another fireball lanced out of his hand before dying inches from her helmet as she struck again. The clumsy cut raked against his leather raiment before the punched her, throwing the full weight of his body behind it. Recoiling and dazed she took a few steps back trying to get back into stance before the mage rushed her and launched himself at her again slamming his elbow into her face across the eye.

  
She focused inwardly fighting past the pain, and she let her aura reach out past her muting all magic. Sergio rushed away from her and out of her field of influence before returning to his pugilist stance. Dancing forward in a wide spinning arc towards her he swung a fist over his head like a pendulum and a boulder sized stone sailed at her chest. The meteor flew into her aura and it eroded like a star entering the atmosphere. And despite the aura enough of it slammed into the templar for her to be thrown all the way across the room and onto the steps of Sergio's throne.

  
Violette's vision blurred and all focus left her. She groped for a sword next to her that she had left on the other side of the room as the murderous clack of the Inquisitor's heels became louder and more insistent, heralding something terrible.

  
She felt someone straddle her, and her shield arm felt out of place and bent in a wrong angle. Her vision focused and she saw Sergio's eye puncture into her own. She could taste the bottomless, pitiless hatred in them. And there she internalized that Sergio's intent was not to hurt her, it was to kill her. He was not someone she used to know lashing out at her. He was her murderer and he was going to do it in front of two score of people and not a soul was going to do a thing about it.

  
Ripping off her helmet Sergio then fastened his hands around her neck. His unblinking gaze bit into her eyes. A grip like a hangman's noose crushed her windpipe and an ugly smile split his face.

  
"Don't you dare blink you evil cunt. I want to see the light leave your eyes when I fucking kill you!"

  
The Inquisitor ignored all sound around him, someone sobbing a ways behind him. The murmuring that had replaced the sounds of their struggle. The scrapping of Violette's boots as she scrambled for purchase on the floor beneath her with decreasing strength and urgency. Or the clack of steel boots coming from his right.

  
With a sharp body blow he was thrown off the young templar and down the steps with the air knocked out of his lungs. Rage burned anew as his eye sought whatever soon to be dead man had the temerity to strike him.

  
The world seemed to stop for an instant as his eye focused on Cassandra who had drawn up her shield and her sword between him and Violette.

  
"Stay behind me Violette!"

  
At this Sergio snapped back onto his feet.

  
"How dare you!" he bellowed, his clawing fingers seeking the neck in the air around them as he began to stalk forward. Cassandra girded herself, tense but with the easy experience of a veteran and did not answer him.

  
"How? I thought you were my friend! How could you betray me like this!?"

  
"It is not a betrayal, Sergio. I am protecting someone you would murder on the steps of the very seat you occupy to mete out justice and mercy."

  
"This is justice, Cassandra! Of the highest kind!"

  
"This is murder! And it is beneath you! I could not believe what you almost did had I not seen it with my own eyes and prevented it with my own hands."

  
Sergio paced around her, still holding out of sword reach as Violette began a coughing fit and drew herself up against the nearest wall. The Seeker withdrew accordingly, still keeping her shield between herself and the Inquisitor.

  
"You will not judge me! After all she put me through. After all the lives she ruined and the promises she broke. She deserves to die!"

  
"Then let her have a trial and step down as the judge."

  
"No! God damn you Pentaghast, stay out of this. I order you to move away!"

  
"I will not."

  
"What possible love could you have for that stranger that you would deny me this?"

"I have none."

  
"Then if not for the sake of justice, why would you deny this to me?!"

  
Violette chanced a look around Cassandra as she drew herself up against the wall, with her shield arm hanging uselessly at her side.

  
"Sergio..."

  
The Herald's eyes ripped away from the Seeker and latched onto her's like a dog cornering a rabbit.

  
"I loved you. Since the first day I laid eyes on you, the same day you wreathed flowers around my helmet, I always loved you. And it was because of my idealism and inexperience during our youth that I encouraged you and whispered honey in your ears that you should never have heard. And because I loved you too much I refused to see what was coming, what I was turning you into. I made you a mage not fit for these times, and you spread that view to others and when you all declared your independence I panicked. I am sorry, I am so sorry. The mages deserved better, you deserved better. Please forgive me."

  
No compassion stirred in Sergio's voice when he snarled "I do not want your apology. I want your life!"

Another stone whipped at Violette who screamed and hid behind Cassandra who blocked it solidly.

  
The Inquisitor's eyes shone with murder as he reared his hand back to fire again.

  
"I will kill you to get to her, Pentaghast."

  
"Come then, Trevelyan." threatened Cassandra in turn, her blood running cold and for the first time in many years since she was a child experienced terror bloom anew in her heart. Not because she doubted she was skilled enough to kill Sergio, but because she did not know if she could actually bring herself to do it.

  
"Sergio don't!" screamed Dorian as the Inquisitor unleashed a barrage of spells at Cassandra.

  
Each one railed into her guard like a sledgehammer and through each one she held on, a little less each time. Violette couldn't move and Cassandra knew if she went on the offensive Sergio would get past her. With each ponderous blow of fire or stone her mind dug into the memory of the man she'd helped dress each morning for two weeks. Who had rested his head on her lap and told her long stories of his family and home. Who had looked into her eyes and seen right through her.

  
Would he really hurt her?

  
Kill her?

  
He wouldn't listen to reason, so she reached into the only thing she hoped might get through to him.

  
Sergio reared back with another fireball as he charged forward to fire it directly in front of Cassandra's shield to blow her away when he skidded to a stop.

  
The fire flickered angrily in his hand inches away from the Seeker as his body reacted without his conscious thought.

  
She had cast away her weapon and shield and stood there, bare and unprotected between him and Violette.

  
Something began to fall to pieces in Sergio as the smooth control he exerted on his body gave out and his hands and legs began to tremble again.

  
"You need to let me do this."

  
"No."

  
"I do not understand. Why do you hate me so much that you'd save the life of the person I hate the most in this world?"

  
"Because I love you too much to let you throw away the man you are for this murderer. She's robbed enough people of their lives without her taking you from us too."

  
Sergio's hand began to shake as more magic began to pour into it, his face torn into a vision of pure hatred.

  
"I hate you!" he screamed into Cassandra's face as he loosed the spell into the glass above his throne.

  
The fireball never came but rather a sheet of angry, intense flame engulfed the seeking eye. Without a fuel source the flames ate themselves into nothing revealing the expansive glass mosaic now stained and opaque with acrid smoke.

  
Tearing away from the pair Sergio ran his fingers through his hair like he meant to rip it out of his head. Slowly he began to settle as his eyes began to wander the faces of every silent judging face in the hall. Clenching his jaw and hiding his hands in his pockets he looked straight at a trio of guards.

  
"You three, arrest the Orlesian."

  
"No don-"

  
"I am the Inquisitor, Cassandra! I am the lord of this keep and I want this murderer arrested!" he countered.

  
The three soldiers warily circled around the Inquisitor and the Seeker to help the Orlesian hobble away. Cassandra looked on, feeling helpless and nauseous as Violette was escorted away.

  
Sergio's eyes wandered to the templar's injured leg then to Cassandra's face before he added: "And see to it her wounds are treated. I also want her fed and watered, withold the lyrium however."

  
And with that he stalked past Cassandra and opened the the door to his staircase. Looking back at the crowd in the keep he curtly finished before slamming the door shut behind him: "Court is dismissed."

  
It was a long time before anyone dared speak.

  
It was even longer until Cassandra could make her hands stop shaking.

  
Hours passed and Skyhold fell into relative silence. By dusk the entire hold was aware of the Herald's attempt to murder the Orlesian templar and the Seeker's fight to stop him. An undercurrent of tension had disrupted the peace between the mages and templars, each in their own fashion was made wary of what this meant for them after the Inquisitor had revealed in no uncertain terms a deep seated hatred for a templar. The mages wondered if his reaction was indicative of an inability between the two groups to coexist. And the templars wondered if his hatred of the one extended to some contempt for them all. It was not comforting that they were in the profound minority among mages.

  
A few however on both sides sought to break the unspoken segregation and commune with the other side in the spirit of "building a better world" as they had heard the Herald speak on many instances. But they were few and far in between.

  
Part of the rumor mill however was that whatever closeness there was between the Seeker and the Inquisitor was effectively finished. Seeing as the two conflicting theories being that he was finished with her for her betrayal and the other that she was finished with him as he had attacked her. A third rumor was that there would be a reckoning between them. Perhaps not soon but it would happen. No one dared pass thoughts on who would win a real fight.

  
Varric was steeped in thought as he considered these things at the "Herald's Rest" the in-house inn at Skyhold, which at the moment was full of folks speaking over ale and roasted chicken.

  
"I knew he was too good to be true."

  
"Just because you were cynical and insisted on the worst coming to pass does not make you right. Sergio just stumbled, Varric. He can recover from this." replied Iron Bull as he nursed a mug of foreign drink.

  
"You call that a stumble? He tried to murder a visitor who came to him to talk, and he did it in front of every foreign dignitary we have. He's finally lost it."

  
At that the dwarf saw the Tevinter mage scowl but say nothing as he stared into his cup.

  
"Maybe letting him and the templar fight it out would be for the best." mused Bull, trying to envision what the battle would be like.

  
"No. Cassandra is right. Letting him do this would change him." started Dorian, chancing a glance at her as she sat opposite of him, leaning against the wall with a cup of stale water in her hand. Her gaze was lost in the distance.

  
"I am not saying it wouldn't Dorian. But maybe he and Violette are past words or peace. It sounds to me like what went on in the keep today was the kind of thing that two mortal enemies do to each other. Maybe the templar did do something terrible, I wouldn't put it past Sergio to want to kill her for it."

  
"He'll forgive someone coming after him but not people he cares about? No, this was entirely personal. You didn't see him Bull, the look in his eyes. The opposite of love is not hatred, its apathy. He cares about this girl deeply, that he'd go after her like that means-"

  
"Stop."

  
"Seeker, I jus-"

  
"Please, just stop."

  
Varric looked at Cassandra and the listless look in her gaze, he was not sure what the lack of fire in her eyes was but she seemed drained. Heartbroken even.

  
"Ok. I'll drop it. At least he didn't hurt you-"

  
The three jumped as the Seeker slammed her cup on the table spilling the water. Silently she jerked up from her seat and left them alone as Bull admonished Varric: "You need to learn when to shut up."

  
Cassandra left the Herald's Rest and was met by the cold night air. Skyhold felt foreign to her now as it never had before, in the grips of some invisible fear. There was no singing, no music, no lively chatter just silence.

  
She hated it.

  
She hated it and she hated the Herald for what he had done. How he could have turned to murder a stranger and abandoned everything he had so fervently believed in for the sake of vengeance. What he had so often exalted to others- mercy, justice, temperance and peace. He dropped all of it in a heartbeat, and revealed something so ugly and twisted underneath, a wound that had rotted and festered beneath the skin for more than a year and a half since before the events of the Conclave. She turned away from the light she briskly walked towards the more secluded area of the barracks where she had her room. It was a small thing, it had an iron brazier in it for light and warmth and a round table that served for a desk in a cramped nook with a large window open to the mountain ranges behind Skyhold.

  
The barracks was empty when she reached it, turning left she went up the creaking stairs up to her door. Turning the handle she froze as she saw that the brazier was lit and burning brightly. Wreathed in shadows with its back towards the door was her high backed chair some feet away. Silently she turned inwards after closing the door behind her. Drawing a dagger she circled the chair looking to see the intruder in her room.

  
White hands scarred with the cuts of sharp knives from hectic kitchens gripped the arm rests of the chair. As Cassandra inched closer to peer under the dark shawl that Sergio was hiding his face in, he glanced at her before looking back at the fire.

  
Neither spoke a word for a long while as Cassandra looked at him, the wasted sense of his aura. He looked physically sick, his eye was glassy and bloodshot.

  
"She was my first love." he began at length, a voice like a harsh whisper.

  
Cassandra relaxed at the tone of his voice, this was not a fight she realized. This was not as he was when he'd attacked Violette. He was himself again.

  
"I had met her long before she'd met me. She didn't know I had noticed her and her golden hair, her blue eyes like the sea. So I thought that maybe if I did something romantic like I'd read in my books maybe she would notice me too. So I asked a templar friend of mine if he'd give me permission to collect some wildflowers for medicinal research. He came with me and we collected a bunch."

  
As he went over what should have been a happy memory Cassandra could see the grief written all over his being. His voice that bespoke a mourning as if for a dead loved one and his pained expression revealed a low agony devouring his mind. Like an open wound constantly being prodded.

"I wreathed them and snuck into the templar quarters. And I placed them around her helmet along with a note with the initial to my name. It took her about an hour to figure out that in the entire Circle there was only one member whose name began with an s who was under the age of fifty. She confronted me about it and I couldn't lie, I was blushing too hard. We parted ways after she told me I was very sweet. About a week later I found a wreath of sunflowers around my staff and a note telling me that I should be careful about signing things and that if I should ever find myself in need to wander the beach of the local lake it would fall to a certain someone to escort him."

  
"We kept our affair secret, it started off innocently enough. Long walks, escorts into the fields to gather elfroot. Then we would hold hands in the forest, then we kissed for the first time after we'd had lunch in the cornfields. And then we did- other things. I was surprised any of this even happened. I was in a middle ground in the Circle, I was the youngest of a whole generation, and several years older than any of the kids. I had no one to talk to but her. And she loved me. After I'd lost my entire family to the Circle I had no one but her. She was brave, funny and enthusiastic. She told me I could do anything I set my mind to, that Circles were a thing that needed to end. That templars and mages ought to have been one group, not two. And as the years passed she and I planned during our idle time: where would we live after we ran away, what color would we paint our house, where would we marry and how many children we would have. We would be alright after all, a mage and a templar living together in peace. Things were wonderful for several years, we even came to adopt in our own fashion three sisters that had come to the circle from Orlais: Danielle, Genevieve and Clarie. They latched onto me the first day they arrived at the circle. I took care of them and showed them the ropes and gave them advice. They were not even twelve winters old and they regarded me as their older brother as they did Violette as the older sister. We had a little family and it was the only time I'd ever felt that at peace since I left Antiva. We were noisy and touchy and obnoxious and we always ate together."

  
Cassandra eased closer as she kneeled by him, watching his expression as he searched the fire with vacant eyes.

  
"As time passed she encouraged me to become First Enchanter of Ostwick. That way I could call a vote one day and free the mages. And the templars would have to accept it, the Ostwick branch was good and just, they wouldn't lash out because they knew the stock of mages they had with them. And then the war came, and I felt that now was the time to do it. The world was changing and Ostwick was stagnant. So I called a vote and everyone from my mentor to the First Enchanter cast their thoughts. It was an even split. So I thought that perhaps the most equitable thing was for half of us to leave and find our own way, maybe go south to Orlais and join the service of the crown or form our own institution where we could act like templars and save the common folk. More people than I thought possible wanted to join me. So I decided to tie the last loose end and tell the Knight-Commander and Violette so she could come with me."

  
"I went to him and told him that half the mages had had a vote in favor of independence. And because it was an even split we did not feel that it was just to declare the Circle broken. So half would stay here and the other half would go their own way in peace and good will. The man called for the Right of Annulment. He killed my mentor and I reacted without thinking, I stabbed him in the neck and I ran as he chocked on his own blood. I heard the templars screaming after me. They thought I had murdered the Knight-Commander and they carried out the annulment. I looked for Violette and I ran into her in the sleeping quarters and she seemed like she'd been hurt by a mage, I tried to calm her down but she wouldn't even speak to me. She tried to kill me and I knocked her over, I couldn't bring myself to kill someone I loved so much. She was my everything. She and I were going to build a future together."

  
"And when I told her I refuse to hurt her, that she should take my hand and get up so we could get our girls and run she cut my face. I ran away and never looked back. I came to the little grove that I'd told my girls to wait for me and Violette should the worst come to pass. And they were there with five back packs with maps, water and food waiting for us. I'd only stopped to save the other mages who were being attacked but we didn't last against the templar assault. I was all cut up and bleeding when I reached the grove but Violette beat me there. I saw her cut Danielle down first as she came running to hug her. She was just nine years old. Violette killed the other two and they didn't even run. I don't think they understood what Violette had just done. I ran until I couldn't take another step, I knew the templars had our phylacteries and would come looking for us. But it would take days to send for them from wherever the hell they had hidden them. Eventually I came across some of my fellows who had survived and we began to make our way south to Kirkwall."

  
"Eventually, I made it to the Conclave as part of the Free Marches delegation of mages to speak on behalf of the massacres that happened in Ostwick. And you know the rest. I tell you this so that you can understand why I did what I did."

  
Cassandra sat by him, amazed in no small way at how _old_ Sergio looked. It was an illness in his soul that gave him an empty, broken look. It baffled her how he could be so amicable and talkative and kept this to himself for so long.

  
"I read in a book once: there are no more bitter enemies, than those we once called friends. Violette was my entire world and she tried to kill me, she killed our girls and our friends. How could I not hate her?" he whimpered as his voice broke and tears began to roll out of his eye.

  
"I am so sorry Cassandra, for failing you and everyone else. I hate being here, I hate being the Inquisitor and the Herald. The Maker did not choose me, no one did. I don't know what I saw in the Fade that day the soldiers found me. I never wanted to be a mage, I wanted to stay home in Antiva with my father and my family, and not a day goes by that I do not miss him. Miss them. I wish they knew how much they mean to me and how much I love them and wish I could drop everything to go home. But I _have_ to do this because I saw the price of failure when Alexius sent Dorian and I into the future. If I do not bear the load and fight on then no one can. I need to be strong no matter how tired I am. I need to be brave and smart and persuasive, but I hate this. I am so scared- all the time- that I may not be the man that everyone needs me to be. I hate having the guilt, the shame and the responsibility. I just want all of this to end. For people to stop fighting and live in peace, I want everyone to be happy. I-I just-"

  
Sergio bit his hand quietly after he wiped away his tears. He bit hard until teeth marks bruised his skin in little tracing lines along a semi-circle. And after a moment his face was impassive and calm, his voice once again steady. His mask was back on again.  
"If I could take back my words and actions today I would." he began as he looked into Cassandra's eyes.

  
"I tried to hurt you and you did as a true friend would have. I am so sorry to have raised a hand against you. That even for a season I had your friendship is more than any Del Monte could have deserved. That is why I wanted to speak to you before the iron cooled so to speak. I understand that our friendship may very well be over. But, I want to hear it from your lips if it is. And therein to pass from you in good will." he finished as he stood up and extended his hand to shake hers.

He dreaded her reply, that much was clear in his eyes.

  
The Nevarran's hand pushed Sergio's down gently, his eyes now downcast grimaced along with his lips.

  
"I understand. I'll just go-"

  
Sergio's eye snapped wide open as Cassandra wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him to her embrace. Reluctantly he returned the hug, wondering how after everything he had done this was happening.

  
"Let me take care of you."

  
The Antivan clung onto the Seeker tightly as the weight fell off his shoulders, his private fears and doubts and his heart laid bare before her unrejected. Unspoken words passed between them and after a long time they parted if a little reluctantly. Cassandra blushed as he stopped coming away from her embrace only a breath away from her lips and she froze. He looked into her eyes with a need, a yearning like words had caught themselves in his throat but only for an instant before he swallowed them and separated completely. He chuckled as he rubbed away the wrinkles in his tunic.

  
"I am too sentimental for my own good."

  
The Seeker squeezed his shoulder, very aware of what she'd seen in his eyes and how very comfortable it was to have him so close to her face. Smirking she rubbed her face to get rid of the feeling.

  
"So am I."

Cassandra then pulled a letter from her pocket that had rested there for weeks. She looked at it thoughtfully for a moment before flicking it into the fire.

"What was that for?"

"Something I should have done some time ago."

Sergio smiled at her happily.

  
"I am starving. Want to get something to eat at the inn?"

  
"Sure" she said, happy that all at once they were back to normal.

  
They exited the barracks into the cold night air and by twos and threes they were noticed by others, all keenly aware of the battle between them earlier. The pair felt silent eyes upon them. As they approached the Herald's rest Cassandra felt a keen sense of annoyance at what others would say about the two of them being seen together like this after what had happened.

  
"To hell with them." she whispered to herself as she threw her arm around Sergio's neck and pulled his ear in full view of the clientele of the inn.

  
Sergio laughed and threw his arm around her in turn.

  
Both again close friends in private and in the full view of Skyhold, dispelled any notion of bad blood between them. They weaved through the tables towards the one Dorian, Varric and Bull occupied with no small amount of surprise on their expressions.

  
Sitting close together again Sergio waved at the barkeep for two apple ales before taking stock of his three friends.

  
"We made up." he said simply, his amicable tone adding credence to a confidence he did not yet feel as his eye glimmered with the soft joy it so often did.

  
"I can see that. Must have been a hell of an apology." said Bull, satisfied.

  
"It was." said Cassandra as she regarded Sergio.

  
Smiling Sergio turned to Varric and Dorian.

  
"I'm sorry, for my part in all that. Letting go of old wounds is hard. I have an idea as to how to make all of this right though."

  
"Do tell." started Varric, his gaze resting too often on Sergio's eyepatch.

  
"I'll pass judgement on Violette. I won't kill her or have her tortured, but I need to do it publicly and fairly to mend what I broke. And frankly, I need to do this. I need to forgive her." he said, nearly chocking on the thought.

  
Dorian clapped his hand on his shoulder.

  
"I'm proud of you."

  
Sergio smiled at him as the barkeep brought the two golden ales to the table. The mood at the Herald's Rest eased off into something akin to normalcy after the Seeker and the Herald settled back into the closeness they were so known for. The bard sang her songs and the volume of conversation rose. During the cacophony Cassandra thought for a long moment of what Sergio had told her, digesting the meat of what had been eating at him. She couldn't help him with most of it, the fear and his role were two things he needed to come to terms with by himself. But she'd be there at his side no matter what came. There was a singular matter however she could remedy she realized as she made the mental note to speak with Leliana about sending out a letter the next morning.

An hour passed in good cheer at their table until Sergio after nervously curling the tips of his fingers around the edges of his scarf for long minutes decided to lean towards Cassandra as the conversation carried on again and gestured her to give him her ear to whisper in. Her good mood for its part ended as he glanced around conspiratorially with a grave expression on his face. Satisfied that with their backs to a wall and only their three friends in earshot they had a degree of privacy even as he whispered low enough that even they would not hear he began: "There is something very important I need to speak to you about."

  
"Yes?"

  
"I wouldn't dare talk about this to anyone but you. Something has happened and I need you in order to figure out what to do about it."

  
"What happened?"

  
"Not here, I cannot say."

  
"Then what do you intend to do? Are we in danger?"

  
"I do not believe so. But I do have an idea where we can address this safely. There is a grove outside of Skyhold, its only a small ways away but it should serve our purpose marvelously as to prevent any spies or discovery. Come there and I will tell you everything."

  
"If you are certain, my lord."

  
"I am. Trust me."

  
"What are you two talking about?" asked Varric as a knowing smile cut his face.

  
"Nothing!"


	4. Poems by Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By the by, the poem "A Lady Stands" was written by a gentleman named Lord Edvard Gayer. Which is the alias of a man who wrote it in 2007 I believe. Here's the link should you want to hear a recitation of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6slDs2dLDlQ

Cassandra trudged quietly down the road to Skyhold three days after she and the Herald had shared ales after his apology. The moon hung brightly overhead, pregnant with its perfect roundness and pockmarked face, as it illuminated the worn road. She could appreciate how dire the situation must have been that Sergio felt unsafe speaking to her in a secluded corner in Skyhold but would deem it necessary to have her come to a hidden grove. It made her very uneasy. Did he believe that there were traitors in the ranks of the Inquisition? Did what he have to say involve Corypheus? A secret mission? Did it involve some secret about Violette and the templars she'd brought with her? His eyebrows knitted themselves as her scowl deepened. She felt reassured by the half plate she wore. Her cuirass and greaves whispered furtively as they rubbed against the tough fabric of her clothes. The sword that hung by her side clinked quietly as it tapped against her shin. Whatever came, she would be ready.

  
Veering off the path before the ruined form of a watchtower rising before her she followed the instructions Sergio had slipped to her in secret. Instructions she'd memorized before burning the paper they were scribbled on in careful lettering.

  
_"Follow the road down until the skeleton of a tower rises before you. Lean off the road with the tower to your right. Go forward into the shadow of the mountain range. Keep going."_

  
The Seeker strode confidently into the moonlit shore beyond the road before plunging into the mute darkness of the shadow of the mountain. Her eyes struggled to adjust for a moment before spotting the vague forms of her next landmarks.

  
_"In the darkness you must seek out a rocky outcrop. Go towards the one with the two old oak trees. Walk between them and in between the rocks past them. Keep moving forward."_

  
She'd overshot her path and the two oaks the note had spoken of were far to the right much closer to the tower than she'd originally thought. Cassandra adjusted and approached them. Long minutes separated her from the trees with nothing but the crunch of her boots on stones and her breathing to remind her of the world around her.

  
Thinking back to the look in Sergio's eyes when he'd come away from her embrace after forgiving him eased some of the tension in her present moment. It made her glad. Happy even. She cared about him, she admitted to herself quietly. And only she knew in her silent confession how she meant that. She wanted him to chase her, to court her. It had been neither the time nor the place to say anything but her desire to take care of him had been articulated. And despite the words left unsaid she hoped it had not put him off.

  
Would it bother him that the object of his affection wanted to take care of him?

  
She knew she was not ladylike. It simply was not who she was. He knew that but did he understand?

  
She sighed heavily.

  
"I'm terrible at this." she exclaimed as she walked between the oaks, stubbornly clinging onto the little dirt beneath the stony ground against the battering winds.

  
" _Several paths will lead you forward. Choose the leftmost one that leads forward into the rocks rather than up or around. There will be a path that then leads into the mountain. There will be a tunnel lined with bushes. Follow it to its end and I will be there waiting for you."_

  
Following steadily to the left she wove through the rocky land until she creeped by the mouth of the tunnel the note had described. Her eyes now adjusted to the darkness she could tell as she approached that there was a faint light at the end of the tunnel. She suppressed her rosy thoughts as she girded herself for whatever had happened that had compelled her friend to ask her to come to a remote location to share words.

  
Cassandra walked in silence, now minding her steps as she made through the tunnel towards the light. Every leaf or branch from the bushes that touched her or snagged on her clothes like hidden hands and fingers made her clench her jaw. What if it was a trap? What if Sergio had been overtaken by whatever he feared and it waited for her?

  
Finally coming to the end of the tunnel she found a singular candle before her at the entrance to the grove which it in itself was nestled around a clearing surrounded by smooth stones and gave the ambundant flora room to grow unmolested by the harsh winds. Before her was a small trail of candles leading to a large blanket spread on the ground and a basket full of fresh bread she could smell from twenty paces and a variety of other food. Next to it sat a bottle of wine and a pair of books and all of these things sat before a slope that offered a beautiful view of the full moon. Suddenly she felt very out of pace. Had she walked into the wrong grove? Was this little scene for a pair of soldiers from Skyhold? The secret hiding place of two lovers trying to carve out a place for them to be at peace and pretend the world was not under threat of annihilation if only for a few hours?

  
"A lady stands beside the field."

  
Cassandra jumped, startled as Sergio's voice carried clearly in the quiet wind. He stepped out from behind the tree he had been leaning on with a soft smile and his accent curling more acutely into his voice. Before she could ask what he was doing he continued as he walked to her.

  
"Within her heart a tear. For though she awaits a champion, does not for her appear. Will no one fight for me? She thinks."

  
The Seeker laughed briefly with delight as she pushed him away from her. He'd leaned to her from his side, giving her a smirk as he punctuated his speech towards her as if it had been her asking the question he voiced.

  
"Is my love that unworthy? Will no lord here my favor bear into the galla tourney. She spies this crowd, this flower fair no lord her favored heap. She turns away her heart bereft, as she begins to weep."

  
Supremely confident and with an air of contentment he beckoned her to give him her hand and as she did he led her to the blanket where he then gestured her to sit. Cassandra smiled, broadly and uninhibited as Sergio stood between her and the moon hanging overhead as he continued to recite.

  
"Across the field a humble lord, he spies this lady's plight and in a flash his heart decides he must deny this slight. He rushes to this lady's side and states as he appears: Such eyes as beautiful as yours were never meant for tears."

  
Sergio bent a knee before Cassandra where she sat, now fully engrossed in his performance, and he held out one hand to her pleading as he held the other one to his chest taking the role of the lord.

  
"Withdraw them please oh lady fair and smile for me this morn'. For though I am fighter not, your favor must be borne. My heart, my soul are here for you, your honor to convey and if you would your favor grant, I'll fight for you this day."

  
Rising to his feet he turned away before looking over his shoulder smiling softly as he walked a few paces away from her.

"She lifted up her eyes and smiled. His virtue there to savor. For standing there before her was a lord to bear her favor. The lord then marched onto the field armed only with her token. And spoke to those assembled of a heart so wrongly broken."

  
Cassandra's heart fluttered in her chest as nervous energy hummed throughout her body, breathing easy became a task. Her cheeks ached as the smile on her face wanted to widen more than the physical limitations of her anatomy would allow. Gesturing to the invisible crowd around him, Sergio continued with a serious look and a stiff upper lip.

  
"This day I bear the favor of a lady you would slight. And in her name I do declare to for her honor fight." he spoke holding up his hand, grasping a token that was not there. Proof of the deed done against the lady who sat behind him.

  
"I call you out you dukes and counts, your actions to defend. Knights and squires, lords and all prepare to make ammends. For though I am an unarmed man and you are men of skill, love shall guide my steady hand and honor shall prevail. All the lords assembled there saw this humble man armed only with a piece of cloth there in his outstretched hand."

  
Turning back to Cassandra he continued with a hint of pride in his voice as if he were factually retelling his own actions on some distant field of battle of Antiva as the humble lord in the poem.

  
"But they all knew in their own hearts that this was love he wielded. One by one opponents came, one by one each yielded. None would stand against this man, they left the field in shame. For they had met a champion who had fought for honor's name. The lady stood beside the field, within her heart a tear."

  
Sergio opened his arms in a welcoming gesture as he stood before Cassandra.

  
"For on that bright and glorious day. Her champion appeared."

  
Cassandra felt a heady rush to her head and felt as if she would swoon.

  
Instead she laughed.

  
"A Lady Stands, by Lord Edward Gayer? Of all the poems you could have chosen I would not have expected that one!"

  
Sergio plopped down next to her as he stuck his tongue out at her.

  
"There is nothing wrong with that poem!"

"Its very-"

  
"Magnificent?"

  
"Girlish."

  
"Irrelevant. I think it is wonderful, it has all the elements that I adore about stories: underdogs saving the day, honor and love prevailing, romance. What is not to like?"

  
The Seeker shook her head as she smiled.

  
"Is this what you had me worrying about for three days?"

  
"Maybe."

  
"Maybe? You omitted that this was a personal matter between you and I. Something you wanted to address with candles and poetry. You could have just told me."

  
"And do what? Spoil the surprise or give you time to run away? No, my dear. This was pre-meditated for some time."

  
"Oh?"

  
"Yes, I had to get a hold of all these candles and the wine and the poetry books. And I had to wait for the moon to be in position."

  
Cassandra chuckled as she shook her head more firmly trying to clear her mind only to find she could not. He'd set this whole evening for her. This was much past the sterile, abstract idea of courting in the future. He was doing it this very moment. And in her mind's eye where she had seen the faceless ideal of a man in armor who would sweep her off her feet, who would romance her like she'd read in every legend and romance tale she'd ever gotten a hold of, she never would have thought Sergio of all people would have been the one doing it. Her ideal was tall and broad and courageous and perfect. And she found the ideal wanting, withering into a laughable homunculus of what she was being presented with by the Antivan; a charming tease who surpassed her in both verbal wit and in social graces and a marvelous storyteller. He was at once a surprisingly vain and selfish person and by far the most humble and selfless man she had ever met. And despite her best efforts she had never once successfully intimidated him, nor was he shy about challenging her. And he had always had the confidence to tease or joke with her.

He had made her feel appreciated and cared about like she had not felt in years.

She plucked one of the two books by her to give herself an excuse to tear her eyes away from his in which she was rapidly getting lost in.

  
"Oh, is it your turn?"

  
"Maybe." she replied as she stood up and began to pace around the blanket as she leafed through the pages.

  
Her fingers tipped between the morass of words and stanzas spread across the pages like so much arcane script before in the innumerable words before her, her eyes spied the words: "Carmenum di Amatus."

  
The Seeker felt light on her feet, the weight of her boots and cuirass reduced to fluff on her frame as she tipped toed around the Antivan happily. She delayed reading the poem, appreciating the admiration with which she observed her.

  
"Carmenum di Amatus" she began.

  
Sergio stood quietly and followed her curiously, obviously not having heard the Nevarran poem.

  
"His lips on mine speak words not voiced, a prayer. Which travels down my spine like flames that shatter night. His eyes reflect the heaven's stars, the Maker's light. My body opens, filled and blessed, my spirit there- not merely housed in flesh, but brought to life."

  
Turning on her heel she found the Antivan face to face with her. The span between them only inches and whatever apprehensions she still had. He knew what he wanted, she knew that. He had never swerved away from it. Sergio's hand slowly came to Cassandra's face as he held her there, gazing at her. She could feel wisps of his breath on her face, each puff a delicious, warm invitation for their lips to meet. Realizing much to her surprise that her hands had grabbed onto his waist she stood here, mesmerized and waiting for him to act.

  
"I have never been abashed about what I feel or why I do things. I have always been clear. Except with you; its about time I started. And if you tell anyone I said this, I will deny it all the way to my grave."

  
Cassandra's eyes twisted away from his lips and into his own as his words drew her away from the moment.

  
"If you would have told me that I would come to care for you; the woman who once held me captive I would have laughed. And dare I say it? I think I've come to love you even, my brave seeker. I want you Cassandra, all of you."

  
The Seeker froze as Sergio came closer, her lips parted without her command and her hands pulled him closer to her. Their lips met and she felt a lightning bolt coruscate from within her heart to every nerve in her body. She pulled him in, crushing their lips together as she kissed him as though her life depended on it.

  
_You are selfish._

  
Cassandra broke away from him covering her mouth as he reached for her.

  
"What's the matter?" he asked, displeasure and tentative concern clear in his eyes.

  
She ran her hand through her hair, bumping up her braid.

  
"I-I cannot do this."

  
Sergio's expression froze as her words sunk in. In an instant she could see his mind race through the light in his single eye. She had no idea what he was thinking, but it made her dread.

  
 "It's not you, Sergio. It's me. I cannot do this to you. Too much relies on you for you to be focused on me. You are the Inquisitor and the Herald of Andraste. Wether you hate it or come to be at peace with it; the whole world hangs on your every action and we face death at every turn. Caring for someone who might be dead tomorrow is not a good way for you to live. You are not a warrior, Sergio. You've suffered enough. And I am not good for you. I'm old, and stubborn and I cannot give you the things you want from a woman. And I cannot give in to what I desperately want."

The Herald's expression changed to one of mild disappointment, like one of discovering there was no more fresh bread at the market. Sergio stood and straightened his short cloak.

"Suit yourself." he said to no one in particular as he strode away.

Cassandra's mouth hung open in speechless surprise for an instant before snapping shut as her confusion turned into indignation.

"That's it?" she started as she stood and followed after the Inquisitor.

Without looking back he replied, "Seems like it."

"But-how? How can you be so heartless? You say you love me one moment and then leave the next like you do not care, how can-"

"Cassandra."

The Seeker froze as the Herald spoke her name, she had never seen this side of him before. The cool focus and command that carried in every syllable he spoke made her freeze, she felt like she'd done something very wrong and had been caught.

" _You_ do not have the luxury of playing games with me. Not you, not anyone. If you disagree with my assessment and believe yourself unworthy of being mine, then leave. But do not push and pull, back and forth enjoying the warmth of intimacy but agonizing over doing so. It is lukewarm affection and it disgusts me."

Snarling Cassandra grabbed Sergio by the forearm and spun him around.

"How dare you?! After all I've told you, all I have confided in you and how I took care of you, for you to treat me this way-"

"Enough" he said twisting his arm out of her grip with the same technique she had taught him.

"I am not the one sabotaging us. You can either be with me, or not. And if you insist on finding a reason you and I should not be together, then I can just move onto the next girl. And I _can_ be that heartless."

Sergio did not break his stride long enough to even look back as he continued to leave. Cassandra felt like he'd just plunged a dagger in her heart, like the best thing that had ever happened to her was walking away and it was her own fault. With a lunge she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face into the back of his shoulder. The pair stood there for a long moment before Sergio turned around and held her in his arms. She kept her face buried into his shoulder as she clung to him, and he adjusted his gaze to the moon with a faint smirk curling the edges of his mouth.

"And what do you want, Cassandra?" he asked, now gently.

  
"I want you."

  
"Then come claim me."

  
"I-I want to. But-"

"But what?"

"I want you to be happy, Sergio. Please do not doubt that. But I don't know if I can make you happy."

"So you think you know what I want better than I do?"

The Seeker leaned into him, exasperated and embarrassed in equal measure. It felt good just to cling to him. Consciously she began to let her armor slip away and let her heart speak plainly.

"I am a jealous woman."

Sergio laughed earnestly.

"As I am well aware. The tension is palpable when I charm other girls while you are in the room. Would it make you feel better if I was all yours?"

Cassandra pinched him, hard.

"Do not mock me."

"Excuse my impropriety. But do note, that out of anyone I could have had here with me tonight I chose you."

"Yes, you chose me. And I am older than you."

"By three years, that hardly makes you a crone."

"And I am not a lady."

"Yes, a characteristic that has saved my life multiple times. You wear strength well, very few women can. And it makes you more attractive to me, to be perfectly honest."

Cassandra looked at him, unsure and exasperated.

"Sergio, I-"

"Cassandra" he began again, as his hand stroked the side of her face.

"Either love me, or don't. But I am not going to make that choice for you. Be terrible and selfish and come to me willingly. Accept the credit for a good decision and the blame all women in Antiva will cast at your feet because you poached one of their men."

The Seeker smiled and pressed her forehead against his, smiling in pure joy. She had never felt this free before in her life. Her heart was laid bare before a man she loved, and he had not pushed her away for all her faults.

"Sergio, I love you. With all my heart, I love you. Be mine."

The Seeker froze as the Antivan kissed her with passion to rival their last kiss. Desperately she pulled him into a tight embrace and a deeper kiss. It was only when their lips parted at length did her hands begin to desperately pull off his tunic as his own hands began to undo the straps in her armor and the buttons on her shirt.

  
The night had been young, but the stars wheeled overhead for less than an hour and the moon began her trajectory to hide behind the mountain range. Her soft light still illuminated two shapes entwined together on a blanket surrounded by candles.  
Cassandra laid there bare to the world as was her lover, her head rested comfortably on his arm as she subsumed herself in the sound of his steady breathing. Her nerves were soaked in warm honey she felt, every muscle in her body felt renewed as did her soul. Being here, naked and vulnerable with the man she'd given herself to was comfortable and safe. Out of the corner of her eyes she couldn't make out what his good eye was doing. Was his attention in spotting the celestial bodies or was he dozing?

  
She smiled silently. It had been unexpected how intensely they had had sex; the wrestling and desperate lovemaking, both unsure and figuring out who was on top, who was in control and exploring each other's bodies as if they were starving and found a feast.

  
"They will say one of two things about me." she began.

  
Sergio turned over seemingly almost lethargic with the same drunken comfort she felt. His good eye beheld her as a smile split his face.

  
"That I stood at the Inquisitor's side. His protector and his lover, and it was meant to be. Or that I was led off the path of faith by the wiles of a madman."

  
Smirking Sergio traced a finger across her stomach, then to her breast then up to her collar bone from beauty mark to beauty mark.

  
"And they will speak at length about how unseemly it was for me to jump above my rank and station to take a Pentaghast for a lover. I will never care about what they say, only about what you believe."

  
"I believe that you are the Herald of Andraste and the Maker chose you. Even if you don't. And beyond that I believe that you are capable of anything, and it frightens me."

  
Sergio's smile died on his face as his finger stopped tracing.

  
"How can you be so sure, _mi amor_?"

  
"Because if Andraste and the Maker did not love you, how could you have done all you have done? Do you think that Cullen, Josie and Leliana follow you because of how kind you are? Do you think the army does? No, it is because when you speak it is as though you see the future and desperately miss a time that has not yet come to pass. A brighter future to come. They hear that and believe in it, and so do I."

  
Cassandra sat up and leaned into Sergio against the blanket. 

"I've only been with one other man in my life. A mage, with whom I adventured when I was still very young. I will  _not_ let Corypheus win. I will never let him take you away from me."

Sergio smiled with a touch of melancholy as she kissed his hands.

"You may not have a choice. You cannot control what will happen to me."

The Seeker straddled him and held his face in her hands.

"Enough."

The Antivan could not make out her expression, shadowed as it was because of the moon shining behind her.

"You give yourself too little credit. You are the best of us, and you yourself said it: you are Corypheus' great nemesis. You. Not a hero in shining armor but an Antivan mage. The cook's son and palm-reading storyteller who saved us when everything was about to fall to pieces. But you are right about one thing-"

Cassandra's finger lightly grazed Sergio's face as she leaned down to kiss him.

"I cannot control what will happen. But that will not stop me from trying."

Sergio held her in an embrace for a long time, committing the moment to memory.

"The bread is cold."

The Seeker pinched him as she rolled off him and threw the blanket over them both with a grin on her face.

"I enjoy your cooking regardless."

Reaching back the Antivan uncorked the bottle of wine and produced two glasses which he filled half way before offering one to his lover.

"It is cherry wine from Emprise du Lion. I got it while I was in Orlais last month."

"You remembered I like cherries."

Sergio smiled lightly as he slowly drained his cup before taking a bite of the loaf of bread he split in two between them.

Cassandra's good humor dampened a bit as she recalled that last trip where she had been left behind. The Antivan's eye flashed with recognition before a smirk parted his lips and he suppressed a chuckle.

"Remember that I told you I would reveal why I left you when the time is right?"

Her eyes looked up to him as she sat up and sipped the wine, listening intently. Her eyes then narrowed as Sergio made a face of delighted embarrassment, the kind he only made when he'd been caught doing some form of mischief.

"Well."

"Go on."

"I told the men to come with me to settle that foolishness in Orlais."

"So you have told me."

"And I needed to acquire a few things."

"What things?"

"Alright, at the risk of being punched I will tell you the truth. But before you start-"

"Sergio-"

"Ok. Before. You. Start."

"Did Varric, Dorian and Iron Bull know that you meant to buy these things for me?!" she demanded gesturing to the candles, the wine and the books.

Sergio clenched as he expected to get a smack on the arm but instead Cassandra looked away and finished draining her glass.

"How long have they known?"

"Oh, I bounced ideas off of them for weeks. Even Blackwall gave me some advice while he taught me how to use a sword a shield."

"Does everyone in Skyhold know?"

Sergio's mirth lessened as he wondered if whether or not she was mad at him.

"Have you really not heard any details about the rumors that abound between us?"

"I've only overheard the Chargers being pigheaded, remarking on our closeness. I have no interest in pursuing gossip and nonsense."

Reaching across to caress her back reassuringly the Antivan continued.

"Well, the gossip and nonsense is fairly entertaining you see, there are a lovely series of rumors floating around Skyhold. At first it was that it is a rather poetic relationship you and I have: the righteous seeker and the mage, writing the wrongs of the world and developing mutual respect for one another. And then the rumors  changed because you and I became such good friends, indicating a possible symbolic healing between templar and mages. Eventually, they hinted that you and I may have something more going on. But they really became something fanciful when you nursed me."

"How fanciful?"

"That you are I are meant to be together. And that watching us is like watching an epic poem unfold; forbidden love between a seeker of truth, bound by her duty and oaths for justice. And a mage, driven only by his conscience into defying the order of the land and building a better world. Two opposites, polarized and yet inexorably drawn together by the will of the Maker into a romance that would save them both and give them the strength to save Thedas."

Cassandra looked back at Sergio and he couldn't read her expression.

"That is  _very_ fanciful."

Sergio shrugged.

"I wonder at times if I am watching the creation of historical anecdotage centered around my love life. And I also wonder if that is the case what will become of that in time? Will it become an actual ballad? A verse in the Chant of Light? A poem? Regardless I do like it, it suits my enormous vanity." he remarked playfully.

"I do too." she admitted with a little smile, in spite of herself.

"I will confess however that I am out of my element."

"How do you mean,  _mi amor_?"

"This." she said, gesturing the empty space between them.

"Being with someone? Its the simplest thing in the world."

"Not for me. I don't want to make any mistakes."

"You will, as will I. And we will figure them out and carry on together."

"But what do I do? I want to make you happy."

Sergio smiled with a degree of pride. The same kind of smile and pride Cassandra had felt when he had come asking her to teach him how to fight like a seeker so he could defend others. She and he felt the same pride because the other wanted to improve for the sake of others.

The Antivan, through bruised knuckles and a broken lip as he raised his fists despite the fatigue and the pain to fight her again in the barracks training ground.

And the Nevarran, vulnerable and bare in a hidden grove. Concerned because of her inexperience and her fierce desire to be the best person she could be to her lover.

"Do right by me. And I will do right by you." 

 

 

 

 


End file.
